 It's a black vulture, but not a Black Vulture |
Following on from our recent post about Azure-winged and Iberian Magpies, here are some other frequently confused (at least for entering on lists, if not identification) species. Please have a look through and correct any of your lists if you think you may have made one of these errors!
- Hepatic Tanager - 50+ people recording this from Costa Rica southwards instead of recording Tooth-billed or Red Tanager (Hepatic reaches no further south than Nicaragua)
- Black-shouldered Kite - 40+ people recording this outside of Australia when they've actually seen Black-winged Kite
- Purple Gallinule - 25+ people recording this in Western Europe (mostly from Spain), rather than Western (or another) Swamphen - there are a few validly ticked Purple Gallinules as a result of a vagrant in Lisbon, but these are the minority
- Black Vulture - 20+ people recording this on this side of the Atlantic (mostly from Spain), rather than Cinereous Vulture
- Cory's Shearwater - c.20 people recording this from the Balearics eastwards where Cory's is replaced by Scopoli's
- Great Grey Shrike - 10+ people recording this from Iberia instead of Iberian Grey Shrike
- Large-billed Crow or Eastern Jungle Crow - 50+ people recording either in south peninsular India or Sri Lanka (two areas where only Indian Jungle Crow should be found)
- Brown-throated Martin - 20+ people recording in Asia when what they saw would have been Grey-throated
- wrong Olivaceous Warbler (e.g. Eastern in Spain, Western in Greece) - c.10 people
- wrong Orphean Warbler - c.10 people
- wrong Subalpine Warbler - c.10 people recording mostly Western in the east, rather than the converse
- Red-flanked Bluetail instead of Himalayan in India or Nepal - c.10 people
As mentioned before, features such as the top targets and top blockers provide much better insights if there aren't too many mistakes on other people's lists.
Whilst we've put this list together mostly based on the IOC world list, similar mistakes appear on other lists too of course. If you spot any other common mistakes, do consider posting in the forum