When I noticed that one person's idea of taxonomic order was different from another person's idea of taxonomic order, both in my few field guides and on Tweeters, I became interested in this question. My dictionary says taxonomic order is a scientific way of classifying things. I'm no scientist, and certainly less experienced and knowledgeable about birds than many, many birders on Tweeters, but you have touched a subject interesting to me, so I'll throw in my two cents.

In Alan Knue's class on Evolution and Taxonomy last Sept. through Seattle Audubon, I received his list comparing the current AOU order (noticeably different than before 2003) with the Clements list (ca. 1970) used by Phoebe Snetsinger as she spotted her ABA record 8000+ species, and with the radically different Sibley-Monroe order (still being hotly debated). The (Charles) Sibley-Monroe list from the 1980's interested me most since it is based on extensive DNA-DNA hybridization studies, although it has not been updated since Monroe's untimely death in 1994.

One difference is that it has fewer orders than the other two lists that are both based on Wetmore from the mid-1900s. This hit me when I tried to find my benchmark bird, the Varied Thrush. (Wikipedia has the entire 18 checklists online.) Oh, it's in there with the thrushes, but it has a new genus, NOT ixoreus, but Zoothera. I happened to stumble upon a genus change in Evening Grosbeak as well, and there are more, I'd place money on it.

OK, so much for taxonomic order differences, but what about which order comes first, second, third,.... I gather that this relates to opinions about how the birds evolved. When I got more interested in birds and acquired my second field guide, I learned that Loons were considered the oldest species in N. America, so they were listed first. However, Sibley-Monroe puts Loons about two-thirds of the way back in the list, Ducks are found in the fourth and fifth orders of the list. Snetsinger changed her own list from Clements to Sibley-Monroe in the 1990's, believing it to be closer to the truth. Late last year the AOU shocked many experienced birders by putting Ducks first in their list, with Loons in 5th place. Oy! The birding world is changing, and changing fast now with interest zooming up in recent decades. More eyes means more opinions.

What to do? Alphabetical order definitely has some merits, but I notice it is snubbed by the knowledgeable. When I report to Tweeters, I use the current AOU order, and I carefully avoid calling it 'taxonomic order' as that is likely to continue to change. Perhaps putting a date on when the list was started would help to explain the order chosen. The nice thing about all this is that pretty much any order you choose would have to be accepted and understood in the long run.

In any case, it's great that you're starting this list!

Patricia Lott
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Seattle, WA
VariedThrush at comcast.net