Philippines update.

BUBO Listing please note: there has been a major overhaul of the official checklist of the birds of the Philippines, overseen by the WBCP (Wild Bird Club of the Philippines), as from January 2015 (with one correction made in March 2015).

This includes 59 new and newly described species not in Kennedy's et al. guide (2000). The latest total therefore stands at 682 species, of which 235 are now recognised as endemic to that archipelago, making for one of the highest endemisms of any country in the world - an astonishing level of diversity, considering so much of the native forest and natural habitats have vanished there.

Jeremy Hurley wrote: BUBO Listing please note: there has been a major overhaul of the official checklist of the birds of the Philippines, overseen by the WBCP (Wild Bird Club of the Philippines), as from January 2015 (with one correction made in March 2015).

This includes 59 new and newly described species not in Kennedy's et al. guide (2000). The latest total therefore stands at 682 species, of which 235 are now recognised as endemic to that archipelago, making for one of the highest endemisms of any country in the world - an astonishing level of diversity, considering so much of the native forest and natural habitats have vanished there.

With reference to the above, submitted on this site nearly two years ago - the list for the birds of the Philippines on BUBO Listing is sadly, grossly out of date. There has now been a further revision by the WBCP, as from 7th February 2016. Having just got back from another trip to those islands, I am unable to comprehensively "tick" here the ever increasing number of newly split endemic Philippine species that I saw.

I appreciate you guys are "busy bees" and that your fine efforts are a labour of love undertaken in your spare moments. However, as a country that has the third highest number of endemic species of birds in the world (currently standing at 239) the Philippines deserves contemporary representation here on BUBO Listing

Kind regards,

Jeremy Hurley

Hi Jeremy

Unfortunately finding the time to do this is difficult. We concentrate on the most popular lists and only two people have used the Philippines list on BUBO Listing in almost a year.

Do WBCP follow IOC for taxonomy? If so there might be an option: we are intending to revisit the way some of our lists are implemented, in order to make less popular ones easier to maintain. This will hopefully happen over the next few months.

Cheers
-- Mike --

Hi Mike,

Thank you for your response.

I am not absolutely sure whether the WBCP adhere strictly to the IOC nomenclature but judging by the number of continuing new splits it seems to be a close match.

Your proposed innovation to make less popular lists easier to update sounds an interesting development.

Best wishes,

Jeremy.

Hello again Mike,

As a follow up to your question as to whether the WBCP follow the taxonomy of the IOC?

I can confirm that the latest revision of their list (May 2017) does indeed adhere to the IOC World Bird List (v. 7.2 ).

I hope that will assist in any planned innovations you had in mind with regards to making it easier to maintain the less popular lists.

Kind regards,

Jeremy Hurley.

Hi Jeremy

Thanks, that would make it easier, but please don't hold your breath!

Cheers
-- Mike --

The Philippines list on BUBO Listing has now been updated to the latest WBCP published version from 2019 , with additional IOC 9.2 changes applied.

Wow - have been holding my breath now for 2.2 years. Good news indeed. Well done BUBO Listing!