Up to now, BUBO Listing has concentrated on UK lists (or countries/counties within UK). We have allowed listers to enter lists based on a small number of "authorities", i.e. British Ornithologists Union, UK400 club and the Birdwatch Magazine (2006) list. However, following many requests to do so, we are now working towards allowing listing for larger regions, such as the Western Palearctic (plus the world, and other regions). For this purpose, we'd like to establish which "authorities" most people tend to follow for their Western Palearctic lists.
From what we can ascertain, the current options seem to be as follows:
a) To use a world list as the base authority for West Pal listing, main options being Clements 6th edition or Howard & Moore 3rd edition.
b) British Birds have a WP list on their website. This is copyrighted 2000 and has presumably not been updated since?
c) Birdwatch magazine published a list of WP birds in 2000 - has not been updated since?
d) the UK400 club has a WP list - presumably kept fairly up to date?
e) the website www.wpbirds.com looks excellent, but appears not to have been updated since 2005 - has this project stalled or moved elsewhere?
f) the website www.netfugl.dk has an authoritative looking list. Again, its is unclear how often this is updated? Who decides on which species get on?
g) the AERC www.aerc.eu would be suitably authoritative. But how up to date is it? On their website there is a "Bird taxa of the WP" that is undated, although the webpage has not been updated since 2005.
We're quite prepared to set BUBO Listing up for multiple authorities for WP listing, as for the UK, but obviously it would be best for us to concentrate on the most widely used ones.
We'd be very grateful to receive any opinions on this subject.
Andy Musgrove & Mike Prince