Subject: Re: Hooded Crown
Date: Aug 24 17:40:58 1997
From: Robert Taylor - taylorrt at geocities.com


Hugh expressed some concern in entering some
of his sightings for Israel and Austria, here
are a couple of comments.

Understand your frustrations in keeping a list.
I do not have AviSys 4.0 but have heard good
things about it but can't comment on your specifics.
I checked Monroe & Sibley and they list as
C. corone with two indented, italicized entries
C.c. cornix and C. c. corone. Their definitions of
those type entries is basically a listing for
those species/subspecies that are possible future
species (my paraphrasing). Clements recognizes only
C. corone. Crows and Jays: A Guide to Crows Jays
and Magpies of the World by Madge and Burn recognize
a third ssp, C.c. capellanus, the Mesopotamian or
Iraq Pied Crow. In the same book they also list
additional subspecies of Carrion Crow (C.c.
orientalis from central & eastern Asia) and two
more ssps of Hooded Crow (C.c. sardonicus --
middle east and C. c sharpii from Urals/Caucasus
region). The situation is probably much similar
to the ongoing discussion of American and
Northwestern Crows except in the case of Hooded
and Carrion Crows you can truly see the difference
in the extremes of their ranges. In the overlap
region with hybrids and intergrades the situation
is far less clear. (Maybe on counts they list or
count them as Corvus corone ssp's!!)

The lack of an entry for Tristram's Grackle is
puzzling. It is clearly listed in both Monroe and
Sibley and Clements. The British Checklist
book by Howard and Moore call it Tristram's
Starling which it is probably more accurately
called but then what is an American Robin?

By the way, the most frequently used field guide
(by my observation) in use in Great Britain and
Europe was Birds of Europe: with North Africa
and the Middle East by Lars Johnsson which
includes the birds you have mentioned. Although
not a field guide I would certainly carry Hadoram
Shirihai's The Birds of Israel when visiting that
country. It probably would require an extra
porter to carry! But worth it.

One of the best world listers keeps a record of
all birds seen at each location on 3 X 5 cards.
Then as splits become recognized geographically
she can add them to her list. This is a daunting
task in as much as she is above 8000! But a very
reasonable method when you consider splits like
Scrub Jay and Plain Tit.

Bob Taylor
taylorrt at geocities.com