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B I R D I N G • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 228
Proposals voted on in 2012 by the ABA
Checklist Committee (CLC) have resulted
in addition to the ABA Checklist of five
species—three of natural occurrence and two ex-
otic—and clarification of the status of one mem-
ber of an additional species-pair. A proposal to
add Purple Swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio), an-
other exotic species (Florida), is in committee
hands for vote at this time.
By stipulation, the ABA CLC follows taxonomicdecisions of the American Ornithologists’ Union(AOU) Committee on Classification and Nomen-clature of North and Middle American Birds (the“North American Check-list Committee,” NACC),including the recent split of the Xantus’s Murreletinto Scripps’s and Guadalupe murrelets. This splitand the five aforementioned additions by the ABACLC raise the ABA Checklist to 976 species.
The current roster of the ABA CLC comprises co-chairman Jon L. Dunn, co-chairman Daniel D. Gib-son, and the six at-large members identified in thebyline to this report. The current term of ABA CLCmember Kevin J. Zimmer will expire at the end of2012, and an election to replace him will be con-ducted before the new year.
New Species Accepted––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Providence Petrel (Pterodroma solandri). As manyas 25 birds were observed and identified at53.2817º N 171.0883º E, about 55 miles (86 kilo-meters) north-northwest of Attu Island, Aleutian Is-lands, Alaska, on 15 September 2011 by Gail B.Mackiernan and Barry E. Cooper (Cooper andMackiernan 2012). The several birds photographedare consistent with this species (see Bailey et al.1989) and exhibited the following marks: robustbuild overall; large, stout bill; white base to the un-dersides of all but the outermost primary; pale pri-mary coverts with contrasting dark tips forming
A B A . O R G / B I R D I N G 29
contrasting double white flashes on theundersides of the primaries (reminiscentof Pomarine Jaeger); dark carpal bar onthe upper surface of the wing contrastingwith the paler back and secondaries; paleface and forehead; tapered tail; and lack ofwhite primary shafts on the upper surfaceof the wing. The observers’ details andphotographs (see Cooper andMackiernan 2012) were ac-cepted, by unanimous vote ofthe Alaska Checklist Commit-tee (“AK CLC”) in November2011, as the first Alaska record,and the species was accepted bythe ABA CLC in March 2012 byseven voting committee members.
Tabled for discussion in 2011 by theABA CLC, a proposal from British Colum-bia was accepted in 2012 (six votes to add,one against, one nonvoting member): onebird observed about 28 nautical miles offTofino, over Clayoquot Canyon, BritishColumbia, on 6 October 2009, by MikeToochin, Sharon Toochin, Roger Foxall,and Arti Ahier. The observers initiallyidentified that bird as a Murphy’s Petrel(see North American Birds 64:138), butthey subsequently determined that it wasinstead a Providence Petrel.
No other previous reports have beenaccepted by state committees. These re-ports include a bird off Washington(Wahl et al. 2005), and multiple re-ports—one involving more than 100 in-dividuals (Hamilton et al. 2007)—fromCalifornia. The California reports likelypertain to Murphy’s Petrel.
During committee proceedings, thespecies was accepted under the AOU’sstandard English name Solander’s Petrel,which was changed by that body in July2012 to Providence Petrel so as “to con-form to general worldwide usage” (seeChesser et al. 2012). We follow Dickin-son (2003) in inserting this species afterGreat-winged Petrel, and we assign itABA Code V 4.
Fea’s Petrel (Pterodroma feae). Sevenmembers voted to accept Fea’s Petrel onthe ABA Checklist, removing the previouslymaintained “slash [‘/’]” category ofFea’s/Zino’s. There has been ongoing con-troversy, but with the publication of a de-tailed article on the subject (Shirihai et al.
2010), the ABA CLC found it rea-sonable to conclude that large-
billed birds are Fea’s Petrels. Alarge-billed individual pho-tographed 20 May 2007 offHatteras, North Carolina, byGeorge Armistead (see photo,
p. 30) provided the basis for thecommittee’s decision to accept
Fea’s Petrel. A very small-billed birdcould be a Zino’s Petrel (P. madeira), butmany birds are problematic. Fea’s is morenumerous than Zino’s and breeds on BugioIsland, off Madeira Island, and on theCape Verde Islands.
The critically endangered Zino’s Petrelbreeds only in the highlands of MadeiraIsland. While nearly all sightings off east-ern North America are presumably ofFea’s, a bird photographed on 16 Septem-ber 1995 off Hatteras was identified byHowell (2012) as a Zino’s. That bird showsa fairly small and slender bill and has awhitish stripe on the median underwingcoverts, a character shown by some Zino’sPetrels, but not by Fea’s Petrels (see Shiri-hai et al. 2010). Pending review and ac-ceptance by the North Carolina BirdRecords Committee, that 1995 bird will bereviewed by the ABA CLC.
The population of Fea’s Petrels breedingon Bugio Island in the Desertas Islands offMadeira is geographically distant from thebirds on the Cape Verde Islands. Althoughvery similar in plumage and not known tobe separable in the field from the CapeVerde breeders, these Desertas Islandsbirds differ in nesting phenology. They layeggs July–August, whereas the Cape Verdepopulation lays eggs December–January(Robb and Mullarney 2008). Moreover,
Jon L. DunnBishop, California
Daniel D. GibsonEster, Alaska
Kimball L. GarrettLos Angeles, California
Marshall J. IliffWest Roxbury, Massachusetts
Mark LockwoodAlpine, Texas
Ron PittawayToronto, Ontario
David SibleyConcord, Massachusetts
Kevin J. ZimmerAtascadero, California
Discuss ABA Checklist changes online: aba.org/birding
A B A C H E C K L I S T R E P O R T
Robb and Mullarney (2008) have employed sound spectro-gram analyses to identify significant differences in vocaliza-tions. Based on those results, Robb and Mullarney (2008)recognize those populations as separate species—Fea’s Pe-trel (P. feae) and Desertas Petrel (P. deserta).
Although the NACC has not considered this issue, such asplit would not be unreasonable in view of other recent de-cisions involving allopatric populations of various seabirds—for example, the erstwhile Dark-rumped Petrel, recently splitand treated as the Galápagos and Hawaiian petrels. Whichpopulations of Fea’s (Desertas, Fea’s sensustricto, or both) reach the western North At-lantic is unknown. In this regard, though, itis worth noting that information from satel-lite tracking has been used to establish theoccurrence of Hawaiian Petrels off the WestCoast of North America. No doubt satellitetracking would be helpful in tracking the twopopulations of Fea’s Petrels, particularly indetermining where they go in the nonbreed-ing season. Most of the North Carolina re-ports (n=75+) are from late May to early June(Le Grand 2012)—that is to say, after egg lay-ing for Fea’s Petrels sensu stricto but prior toegg laying for Desertas Petrels.
Fea’s Petrel retains the same status (ABACode V 3) and position on the ABA Checklistas for the former Fea’s/Zino’s Petrel entry.
Double-toothed Kite (Harpagus bidenta-tus). One second-calendar-year bird was
photographed at High Island, Texas, on 4 May 2011. Thebird was seen and documented by Dave Hanson, whothought he had photographed a Cooper’s Hawk, but thatidentification was changed days later after others hadviewed the photos. The photos have since been widely re-viewed by experts, and all have agreed on the identification(see Pranty et al. 2011). The record was reviewed and ac-cepted in April 2012 by the Texas Bird Records Committee(TBRC), with one dissenting vote on origin.
Much of that committee’s debate concerned origin, par-ticularly the means by which a supposedly sedentary forestspecies might have reached coastal Texas. TBRC’s files indi-cate that the species does fly at high altitudes at times, andJesse Fagan has reported to the TBRC that some movementsof this species occur during the dry season in El Salvador.It is worth noting that the species is unrecorded at the“River of Raptors” hawk watch in Veracruz. It is also worthnoting that ffrench (1991) reported Double-toothed Kiteson Trinidad primarily from January to June and wonderedif the species migrates to the mainland. If such crossingsoccur, then perhaps the Texas bird arrived at High Island viaa trans-Gulf crossing rather than by proceeding up the eastcoast of Mexico and Texas. Because the species is not keptfor falconry and is essentially unknown in captivity, theTBRC treats this occurrence as pertaining to a naturally oc-curring vagrant, a decision endorsed unanimously by theABA CLC.
Following the NACC, we place the Double-toothed Kiteimmediately before the genus Ictinia—that is, right before
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Providence Petrel.Off Attu Island, Alaska; 15 September 2011.Photo by © Gail B. Mackiernan.
Fea’s Petrel.Off Hatteras, North Carolina; 20 May 2007. Photo by © George Armistead.
B I R D I N G • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2
the Mississippi Kite. We assign ABACode V 5 to the species.
Rosy-faced Lovebird (Agapornis ro-seicollis). A native of southwesternAfrica in Angola, Namibia, and north-western South Africa, the Rosy-facedLovebird is now widely established inthe greater Phoenix, Arizona, area.Most of the Arizona population occu-pies a region of about 625 square miles,centered on Phoenix. The species wasadded to the Arizona list by unanimousvote of the Arizona Bird Committee inDecember 2011. The species was firstnoted near the border of the towns ofApache Junction and Mesa in 1987,and by the mid-1990s local flocks andcolonies had spread throughout theeastern half of the greater Phoenix met-ropolitan area. A few birds have alsobeen seen near Punkin Center, alongTonto Creek, in Gila County, as well asin the Tucson region.
Lovebirds are found primarily in non-native plantings in desert and residential neighborhoods,avoiding areas with a native Sonoran Desert landscape.Water appears to be a limiting factor for the species, and thebirds seem unlikely to colonize regions outsideurban areas with exotic plantings. For more de-tail, see Corman and Wise-Gervais (2005) and es-pecially Radamaker (2011).
Seven ABA CLC members voted to add thespecies to the ABA Checklist. Following Dickinson(2003) in placing Agapornis with other Old Worldpsittacine genera, we insert the Rosy-faced Love-bird after the Budgerigar. We assign ABA Code E2 to the species. Note that A. roseicollis has beenwidely referred to as the “Peach-faced Lovebird.”
Nanday Parakeet (Nandayus nenday). An es-tablished exotic population in Florida (e.g., Prantyand Lovell 2004, 2011) provides the basis for theaddition of this species to the ABA Checklist. TheNanday Parakeet had been accepted unanimouslyby the Florida Ornithological Society RecordsCommittee in 2004 (Bowman and Greenlaw2006), but the species (then known as Black-hooded Parakeet) was rejected by the ABA CLCin 2006, when two committee members were
concerned that the range of Nan-day Parakeets along the centralGulf Coast of Florida, estimated byPranty and Lovell (2004) as 150square miles, was insufficient to as-sure that establishment had takenplace (Pranty et al. 2006).
In 2011 Pranty provided up-dated information on the species’population size and range inFlorida; both figures had increasedsince the first ABA CLC vote.Numbers on Christmas BirdCounts during December 2011–January 2012 totaled 1,002 indi-viduals, and the range along thecentral peninsular Gulf Coast wasmapped at about 750 square miles.A separate population of perhaps350–400 birds now occupies anestimated 490 square miles alongthe state’s southern Atlantic Coastas well. Nandays are most numer-ous in southern Pinellas County,where they were first observed in
1969 and first photographed in 1985. By early 2004, Nan-days in Florida numbered at least 882 birds, with most ofthem in Pinellas County (Pranty and Lovell 2004). By 2010,
A B A . O R G / B I R D I N G
Double-toothed Kite.High Island, Texas;4 May 2011. Photo by © David Hanson.
Rosy-faced Lovebird.Gilbert, Arizona; 18 March 2008. Photo by © Brendon Grice.
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A B A C H E C K L I S T R E P O R T
71 presumed or confirmednests had been documentedstatewide (Pranty and Lovell2011).
Nanday Parakeets are res-ident in palm groves andother open forests fromsouthwestern Brazil andsoutheastern Bolivia to cen-tral Paraguay and northernArgentina. Another exoticpopulation in the ABA Area,numbering about 300 indi-viduals, is found in south-ern California (Pranty andGarrett 2011).
Following the AOUSACC, we place the NandayParakeet after the Green Parakeet. We assign ABA Code E 2to the Nanday Parakeet.
Asian Rosy-Finch (Leucosticte arctoa). One bird was ob-served and photographed with four Snow Buntings at AdakIsland, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, on 30 December 2011, byIsaac Helmericks, who identified the bird. The observer’s fivecolor photographs and written details were accepted as thefirst Alaska record by unanimous vote in 2012 of the AKCLC, and the species was accepted by the ABA CLC in Feb-ruary 2012 by seven voting committee members. The AsianRosy-Finch occurs from mountainous southern Siberiaand adjacent Mongolia in the Altai and Sayans east in thesouthern Russian Far East to Kamchatka. The Alaska bird is
likely of the subspecies brunneonucha, theeasternmost subspecies, which breeds inthe Russian Far East from the mountainseast of the Lena River to Amurland andthe Sea of Okhotsk, Kamchatka, and theKuril Islands; it winters in Ussuriland,Manchuria, Sakhalin, Hokkaido, andHonshu (Vaurie 1959).
Following Dickinson (2003), we listthis species first in the genus Leucosticte.Thus, Asian Rosy-Finch precedes Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch on the ABA Check-list. We assign ABA Code V 5 to the AsianRosy-Finch.
AOU Taxonomic and NomenclatorialChanges Affecting the ABA Checklist––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––The 53rd supplement to the AOU Check-list of North American Birds (Chesser et al.
2012) presents numerous taxonomic changes affecting theABA Checklist. By stipulation, the ABA Checklist follows alltaxonomic revisions to the AOU Check-list. Changes affect-ing the ABA Checklist are summarized below:
• Change specific epithet of Gray Hawk to plagiatus, a taxonformerly maintained as conspecific with Buteo nitidus (GrayHawk sensu lato). B. nitidus is now recognized to be a sep-arate species, the Gray-lined Hawk, found from south-western Costa Rica south to northern Argentina.
• Move family Falconidae (caracaras and falcons) to followfamily Picidae (woodpeckers).
• Change gender of specific epithet of Purple Gallinule fromfeminine to masculine; thus, Porphyrio martinica becomesP. martinicus.
• Insert Scripps’s Murrelet (Synthliboramphus scrippsi) to pre-cede S. hypoleucus (now Guadalupe Murrelet); the formeris assigned ABA Code N 2, the latter ABA Code V 3. To-gether, these two formerly constituted Xantus’s Murrelet.
• Move family Psittacidae (parrots and allies) to follow fam-ily Falconidae.
• Change generic epithet of Chuck-will’s-widow, Buff-col-lared Nightjar, Eastern Whip-poor-will, and MexicanWhip-poor-will from Caprimulgus to Antrostomus (caroli-nensis, ridgwayi, vociferus, and arizonae, respectively). GrayNightjar remains the only ABA member of the genusCaprimulgus.
• Change generic epithet of Calliope Hummingbird to re-flect merger of Stellula in Selasphorus; move Calliope Hum-mingbird to follow Allen’s Hummingbird.
B I R D I N G • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 232
Nanday Parakeet. Fort De Soto Park, Florida;12 May 2002. Photo by © David Roemer.
Asian Rosy-Finch. Adak Island, Alaska; 30 December 2011.Photo by © Isaac Helmericks.
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• In family Troglodytidae (wrens), the genus Thryothorusas it has been constituted is polyphyletic. Therefore,move genus Thryothorus, now comprising the singlespecies ludovicianus (Carolina Wren), to follow the genusCistothorus. Sinaloa Wren (formerly Thryothorus sinaloa)is now recognized to be a member of the genusThryophilus, which follows Thryothorus. The nomencla-ture and sequence of these species on the ABA Checklistnow proceeds from Marsh Wren (Cistothorus palustris) toCarolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) to Sinaloa Wren(Thryophilus sinaloa).
• Change generic epithet of Sage Sparrow from Amphispizato Artemisiospiza; the position on the Checklist of SageSparrow, now the only species in the genus Artemisiospiza,is unchanged.
• Move genus Pyrrhula (Eurasian Bullfinch) to follow thegenus Pinicola (Pine Grosbeak).
• Change generic epithet of Purple, Cassin’s, and Housefinches from Carpodacus to Haemorhous (purpureus, cassinii,and mexicanus, respectively). Common Rosefinch remainsthe only ABA Area species in the genus Carpodacus. Thesequence in the Checklist of these four species is un-changed.
The preceding changes are fully described by Chesser et al.(2012).
AcknowledgmentWe thank Bill Pranty for preparing the account for NandayParakeet.
Literature CitedBailey, S. F., P. Pyle, and L. B. Spears. 1989. Dark Pterodroma petrels in
the North Pacific: Identification, status, and North American oc-currence. North American Birds 43:400–415.
Bowman, R. and J. S. Greenlaw. 2006. Fifteenth report of the FloridaOrnithological Society Records Committee: 2003–2005. FloridaField Naturalist 34:69–102.
Chesser, R. T., R. C. Banks, F. K. Barker, C. Cicero, J. L. Dunn, A. W. Krat-ter, I. J. Lovette, P. C. Rasmussen, J. V. Remsen, J. D. Rising, D. F. Stotz,and K. Winker. 2012. Fifty-third supplement to the American Or-nithologists’ Union Check-list of North American Birds. Auk129:573–588.
Cooper, B. E. and G. B. Mackiernan. 2012. First record of Solander’sPetrel (Pterodroma solandri) for Alaska. North American Birds65:704–708.
Corman, T. E. and C. Wise-Gervais, eds. 2005. Arizona Breeding BirdAtlas. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Dickinson, E. C., ed. 2003. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklistof the Birds of the World, third ed. Princeton University Press,Princeton.
ffrench, R. 1991. A Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, seconded. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
Hamilton, R. A., M. A. Patten, and R. A. Erickson, eds. 2007. Rare Birdsof California. Western Field Ornithologists, Camarillo.
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Le Grand, H. 2012. Birds of North Carolina: Their Distribution and Abun-dance. Carolina Bird Club <tinyurl.com/LeGrandFea>.
Pranty, B. and H. W. Lovell. 2004. Population increase and range ex-pansion of Black-hooded Parakeets in Florida. Florida Field Natu-ralist 32:129–137.
Pranty, B. and H. W. Lovell. 2011. Presumed or confirmed nesting at-tempts by Black-hooded Parakeets (Nandayus nenday) in Florida.Florida Field Naturalist 39:75–85.
Pranty, B., J. L. Dunn, S. C. Heinl, A. W. Kratter, P. Lehman, M. W. Lock-wood, B. Mactavish, and K. J. Zimmer. 2006. Annual report of theABA Checklist Committee: 2006. Birding 38(6):20–24.
Pranty, B., J. L. Dunn, D. D. Gibson, M. J. Iliff, P. E. Lehman, M. W. Lock-wood, R. Pittaway, and K. J. Zimmer. 2011. 22nd annual report ofthe ABA Checklist Committee: 2010–2011. Birding 43(6):26–33.
Pranty, B. and K. L. Garrett. 2011. Under the radar: Non-countableexotic birds in the ABA Area. Birding 43(5):46–59.
Radamaker, K. A. and T. E. Corman. 2011. Status of the Rosy-facedLovebird in Phoenix, Arizona. Arizona Birds Online 2011:1–7<tinyurl.com/PhoenixLovebird>.
Robb, M. and K. Mullarney. 2008. Petrels Night and Day: A Sound Ap-proach Guide. The Sound Approach, Dorset.
Shirihai, H., V. Bretagnolle, and F. Zino. 2010. Identification of Fea’s,Desertas, and Zino’s petrels at sea. Birding World 23:239–275.
Vaurie, C. 1959. The Birds of the Palearctic Fauna: Passeriformes. H. F.& Witherby, London.
Wahl, T. R. , B. Tweit, and S. G. Mlodinow, eds. 2005. Birds of Washing-ton: Status and Distribution. Oregon State University Press, Cor-vallis, Oregon.
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Guadalupe Murrelets.Off San Miguel Island, California;31 July 2010. Photo by © Larry Sansone.
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