Hello All,
See below. Washington has records of both Scripps's and Guadalupe
murrelets -- more of the former. A number of records will have to be
left unclassified, however.

Charlie Wright
Puyallup, Washington

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marshall Iliff <miliff at aol.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 12:17 PM
Subject: [eBird Regional Editors] Please correct your Xantus's Murrelets!

eBird editors,

Each year in August, eBird updates its taxonomy to match taxonomic and
nomenclatural changes made by the AOU over the past year, including
changes by both the North American Classification Committee (NACC) and
South American Classification Committee (SACC). This update also
corresponds with the Clements update, which captures many other
changes around the world.

The most difficult cases for us are when species splits occur. In
these cases, we often end up updating the records for our users, which
is in part a service and in part a necessity in order to accurately
show bird ranges worldwide. When Common Moorhen was split into New
World and Old World species, this update to eBird records was
time-consuming, but easy to perform -- anything in the New World
became Common Gallinule and anything in the Old World became Eurasian
Moorhen.

The next NACC update will be published in August and will split three
species. One, Galapagos Shearwater, is already recognized as a species
in eBird. The second, Gray Hawk, will be easy to convert the records,
since the northern species (Gray Hawk; Buteo plagiatus) is unknown
south/east of western Costa Rica, while Gray-lined Hawk (Buteo
nitidus)?accounts for all records south and east of there. However,
the third split, Xantus's Murrelet, is going to cause headaches so we
will need as much help as possible from our users.

Xantus's Murrelet ( Synthliboramphus hypoleucus) will be split into
Scripps's Murrelet (S. scrippsi) and Guadalupe Murrelet (S.
hypoleucus), which are both well covered in field guides and this
split should come as no surprise since they have different breeding
ranges, plumage and calls.

First, please check your filters and if both forms have occurred in
your county, make sure both are on the list with appropriate filter
limits. No need to remove Xantus's Murrelet; it will later update
automatically to Scripps's/Guadalupe.

The bigger problem for us will be that the ranges overlap almost
completely, although some average patterns exist (i.e., birds around
the Channel Island and inshore of there, especially in Feb-Jul, are
almost all Scripps's). When it comes time for an eBird update though,
I don't think we'll want to make any assumptions.

That is to say:

1) anything currently entered as Xantus's Murrelet (scrippsi) will
update to Scripp's Murrelet

2)?anything entered as Xantus's Murrlet (hypoleucus) will update to
Guadalupe Murrelet

3) anything entered as just Xantus's Murrelet will be changed to
Scripps's/Guadalupe Murrelet and will therefore *not count* on life
lists, state lists, and county lists if it is the only entry.

Now if the best time for eBirders to open their eBird Life List for
Xantus's Murrelet. If you know what you saw, PLEASE go in now, open
that list, and change the record to the subspecies option. If you have
friends, encourage them to do so too. If you can post to your local
listserv, please do that too. Ideally we want users to have all their
records changed by early August, when our taxonomic update will take
effect.

To change your records, click this link, and click on any date that
does not have the subspecies shown. After changing, hit the back
button on your browser, refresh the page, and then click the next
date.

http://ebird.org/ebird/MyEBird?cmd=list&rtype=custom&r=WORLD&rank=lrec&time=life&spp=xanmur

To see the current eBird output:

eBird map Scripps's/Guadalupe --?http://ebird.org/ebird/map/xanmur
eBird map Scripps's --?http://ebird.org/ebird/map/xanmur2
eBird map Guadalupe --?http://ebird.org/ebird/map/xanmur1

Thanks in advance for updating your records, if you know what you saw.
If you are not sure which you saw, then leaving it as "Xantus's
Murrelet" is the best option.

Best,

Marshall Iliff
eBird Project Leader

PS - One more split and one more lump in Central America, numerous
name changes (especially nightjars), and significant list shuffling
(falcons next to parrots) can be expected too.
--
****************************
Marshall J. Iliff
miliff AT aol.com
West Roxbury, MA
****************************
eBird/AKN Project Leader
www.ebird.org
www.avianknowledge.net
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Ithaca, NY
****************************