T R A C K I N G T H E W O R K O F T H E A B A

F L I G H T P A T H

B I R D I N G J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 620

INSIDE THE ABA CHECKLIST COMMITTEEWho, What, and Why

The ABA Checklist Committee (CLC) makes de-cisions that affect most ABA membersandmany birders overall. According to the ABA by-laws, the purposes of the CLC are as follows:

The Checklist Committee shall assemble for publica-tion a master checklist of the birds of North Amer-ica. ... The checklist shall be revised from time totime by the Committee, and shall serve as the basisfor all North American Life Lists and other types oflists recognized by the Association for areas that in-clude, or are included by, North America as delineat-ed herein. The Committee shall consist of ve ormore members and shall le its report annually withthe board of directors.

Following an amendment to the CLC bylaws in 1997,the Committee now contains eight members. Eachmember serves a four-year term that may be renewedonce, meaning that a member may serve for up to eightconsecutive years. Afterward, each member must re-main off the Committee for at least one year before be-ing eligible for reelection. Terms are staggered so thateach year two CLC members must either cycle off theCommittee or be reelected (if applicable). PotentialCLC members are nominated by current Committeemembers, and their election must be approved by the

ABA Board. The chair of the Commit-tee is elected annually and must stepdown when his or her term expires.Current CLC members are chair BillPranty (Florida), Jon Dunn (Califor-nia), Steve Heinl (Alaska), AndrewKratter (Florida), Paul Lehman (NewJersey), Mark Lockwood (Texas),

Bruce Mactavish (Newfoundland), and Kevin Zimmer(Arizona). The terms of Heinl and Mactavish expire inOctober 2006.

Despite a widely held misperception to the contrary,the CLC does not determine the countability of a par-ticular bird or observationthat is the responsibility ofthe ABA Recording Standards and Ethics Committee

chaired by Tony White. Rather, the purpose of the CLCis to determine whether the documentation providedfor an observation is sufcient to add a bird to the ABAlist (in all but two casesFeas/Zinos and Galapagos/Hawaiian Petrelsas a species) or whether to changethe code of a species. The current (sixth) edition of theABA Checklist was published in 2002. Jon Dunn and theother CLC members are currently revising the Check-list, with publication of the seventh edition anticipatedby the end of 2006.

Inasmuch as the ABA Checklist Committee automat-ically accepts all changes in taxonomy and nomencla-ture that are made by the Committee on Classicationand Nomenclature of the American OrnithologistsUnion, many birders may wonder about the relevanceof the CLC. The existence of the ABA CLC has been val-idated and encouraged by the AOUs committee. In ad-dition to the two purposes of the CLC stated in the ABAbylawsto assemble and periodically update a masterlist of the birds of the ABA Areathe Committee alsoserves several other functions. Among these are: (1) toshare information and work with the AOUs Check-listCommittee on reports new to the ABA Area (the 49continental United States, Canada, the French islandsof St. Pierre et Miquelon, and adjacent waters up to 200miles offshore or half the distance to a neighboringcountry, whichever is less); (2) to review and reevaluatethe status of birds on the ABA Checklist as necessary;and (3) to publish in Birding an annual report on the ac-tions of the CLC. The Committee also annually updatesan online version of the ABA Checklist available at and an-swers questions from ABA members published in Bird-ing or sent via e-mail.

Like other bird records committees, the CLC main-tains the status quo regarding the status and distribu-tion of species until a change to the list is recommend-ed. Typically this recommendation is published in a na-tional, regional, or state ornithological journal such asNorth American Birds or Western Birds. In addition toproviding relevant details surrounding an observationnew to a state, country, or the ABA Area, a publication

Bill PrantyABA Checklist Committee Chairman

8515 Village Mill Row

Bayonet Point, Florida 34667-2662

billpranty@hotmail.com

Birding 08-06 Flightpath 6/12/06 1:34 PM Page 20

serves as an archive and usually includes supporting photo-graphs and/or sonograms.

Letters to the editor concerning the ABA CLC have beenpublished in Birding for more than 30 years. Although nu-merous topics have been discussed, ever-changing taxonomyhas been a frequent topic. Some birders wonder why theABA CLC does not adopt a stable list in which no changein the taxonomic order would be permitted, or as BurtonGuttman stated in a commentary in the February 2004 issueof Birding (pp. 4649) ...the listing aspect of birding shouldbe divorced from systematic ornithology. However, mem-bers of the CLC feel strongly that the ABA Checklist shouldmaintain its dependence on ornithology, which like othernatural sciences is not static, and where new knowledge isconstantly being learned and applied in a variety of ways.Species are lumped or split as their relationships are bet-ter known from DNA and other studies, and several otherfactors (such as vagrancy of native species and the establish-ment of exotics) affect species on the Checklist. Members ofthe CLC suspect that a majority of the ABA membership un-derstands and accepts the need to revise the ABA Checklistbased on new data.

As with members of other records committees, members ofthe CLC consider several factors when assessing a report.First of course is identica-tion: The identication tospecies and often to sub-species must be determinedconclusively. But other fac-tors involving a report mustalso be considered. Chiefamong these is prove-nancethe likelihood thata bird from somewhere elsemade its way to the ABAArea naturally versus thepossibility (or probability)that it escaped from captivi-ty locally. Because theprovenance of few birds canbe proven (by leg bands orother markers), members ofrecords committees must make a judgment based on factorssuch as the birds native range and the likelihood of its sur-viving a trip, along with its normal migration patterns, histo-ry of vagrancy, overall condition, and especially its likelihoodof having been kept in captivity. After considering these andperhaps other factors concerning a potential vagrant, recordscommittee members render a conservative judgment based on

the strength of theevidence provided.The example belowexplains the deci-sions made by CLCmembers when re-viewing a record of abird that could havebeen either a nativevagrant or an es-capee.

Thick-billed Parrot:A Case StudyOn 7 May 2003, aThick-billed Parrotwas discovered in asmall grove of exoticpines on a private ranch at Engle, New Mexico. Except for afour-day period when it seemed to be absent, the parrot waspresent at the ranch until 23 June 2003 and was observed bymore than 500 birders from 34 states and six countries. Theidentication of the parrot was unquestioned, but its prove-nance was a matter of extensive discussion. After more than ayear of deliberation, the New Mexico Bird Records Commit-tee (NMBRC) rejected the record by a vote of 6-1 on the basisof questionable provenance. The Thick-billed Parrot was al-ready on the ABA Checklist based on wild birds documentedin southeastern Arizona during the early 20th century. How-ever, the last wild Thick-billed Parrot in the ABA Area wasseen in 1938, so the species has been considered extirpated.Thus, the 2003 New Mexico parrot record was reviewed bythe ABA CLC because its acceptance would change its statusfrom Code 6 (cannot be found) to Code 5 (accidental).The CLC reviewed the NMBRCs entire extensive le on theThick-billed Parrot record from New Mexico and unanimous-ly supported the NMBRCs decision to reject the record on thebasis of provenance. Here, I detail the discussion that thisrecord generated by CLC members in greater detail than canbe provided in the annual CLC reports published in Birding.

Native Range: The Thick-billed Parrot is considered byBirdLife International to be an endangered species whoserange and numbers likely still are declining. Currently, it oc-curs as far north as northern Chihuahua, within 200 miles ofEngle, New Mexico. However, there has been no documentedrecord of a Thick-billed Parrot within the United States inmore than 65 years (excepting a failed reintroduction pro-gram in Arizona, 19861993). Furthermore, there is no veri-able record of a Thick-billed Parrot from New Mexico,

W W W . A M E R I C A N B I R D I N G . O R G 21

The ABA Checklist Committee will soon evaluate therecord of a well-documented Red-footed Falcon(Falco vespertinus) in eastern Massachusetts, the rstever reported in North America. The committee willevaluate both the identity of the bird and the matterof its originfor example, might it have been ship-assisted? Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts; 10 August2004. Jeremiah Trimble.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is currentlyclassied as a Code 6 species (cannot befound) by the ABA Checklist Committee. Ifdenitive evidence of its occurrence were tobe published and then evaluated by theCommittee, the status of the species wouldbe changed to Code 3 (rare). The bird inthis videograb is judged by some authori-ties to be an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, butthe Committee has not endorsed that judg-ment. Brinkley, Arkansas; April 2004. David Luneau.

Birding 08-06 Flightpath 6/12/06 1:34 PM Page 21

B I R D I N G J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 0 6

F L I G H T P A T H

22

although there are sight reports from the early 20th century.Habitat: The Thick-billed Parrot is a highland species, oc-

cupying old-growth montane pine forests. A ranch in the mid-dle of the Chihuahuan Desert lowlands is a very unlikelyhabitat for a wild parrot, which would have had to have tra-versed at least 200 miles of unsuitable habitat to arrive at En-gle. Furthermore, a natural vagrant from Mexico would havepassed, and probably would have settled in, suitable montanehabitat between Chihuahua and Engle.

Arrival Date: The northernmost population of the Thick-billed Parrot is migratory, arriving on the breeding groundsaround the rst week of June. The Engleparrot was rst seen on 7 May, three orfour weeks earlier than the expected ar-rival date for a wild parrot in Chihuahua.

Behavior: The Engle parrot was tame,allowing humans to approach within2530 feet. At least one observer felt thatthe parrot occasionally moved towardshumans, which indicated possible previ-ous captivity. However, Thick-billed Par-rots seem to be naturally unwary at times.Furthermore, the Engle parrot refusedparrot food that was offered to it, but in-stead foraged extensively on pine cones,which are its primary natural food. Be-cause parrots are social animals that areseldom seen alone, some CLC members felt that a single par-rot was more likely to be an escapee, and that vagrant parrotswould be more likely to be seen in small ocks, as was thecase with the early 20th-century records from Arizona.

Plumage condition: The plumage of the Engle parrotshowed little wear and only a few missing ight feathers onone wing. There was no evidence of cage wear or damage.One parrot researcher examined photographs of the Engleparrot and thought that she could see evidence of recent hu-man handling, but some CLC members were uncertainwhether such feather condition could be detected or identi-ed from photographs. Stable isotope analysis of a parrotfeather salvaged from the ranch in June 2003 was inconclu-sive, suggesting that the feather could have been grown any-where in a broad band ranging from southeastern Colorado tocentral Mexico.

Weather Conditions: Although storm-assisted vagrancy iseasy to detect with pelagic species, it is often very difcult tocorrelate weather conditions with single landbirds (as op-posed to large fallouts of landbirds that may include va-grants). Although some observers of the Engle parrot men-tioned that northern Mexico experienced tornado-like

winds the week prior to the parrots discovery at Engle, CLCmembers considered it difcult to imagine a scenario in whicha parrot would be safely transported 200 or more miles bystrong winds. (Strong winds do not pluck birds out of treesand transport themmiraculously unhurthundreds orthousands of miles away). Other observers mentioned a poorpine crop locally and hypothesized that the Engle parrotmight have been a wild individual wandering widely in searchof food. CLC members considered this scenario to be a veryremote possibility given the parrots location in the middle ofa desert.

Provenance: As with some waterfowl,raptors, and songbirds, the possibility ofan extralimital psittacids being an escapeemust be considered. Except possibly forthe lack of obvious cage wear or damage,there was no strong evidence that the En-gle parrot was a vagrant. However, severalfactors, including those listed above, sug-gested an escapee. Another point in favorof its being an escapee is that a railroadline and an interstate highway both passwithin a few hundred feet of the pinegrove on the ranch. This line and roadboth lead to El Paso, Texas, and CiudadJurez, Mexico, two cities known for re-ceiving smuggled psittacids. Thick-billed

Parrots are known targets of psittacid smugglers74% of the88 Thick-billed Parrots that comprised the reintroductionock were wild-caught individuals conscated from smug-glers. There are also several Thick-billed Parrots at the El PasoZoo. For these reasons, members of the ABA CLC and the NewMexico Bird Records Committee voted against natural va-grancy as the explanation for a Thick-billed Parrot visiting aranch in the Chihuahuan Desert in southwestern New Mexico.

Although some birders may be disappointed by the deci-sions made by members of the New Mexico Bird RecordsCommittee and the ABA CLC regarding the recent Thick-billed Parrot record, the votes were in line with the conserva-tive stance usually taken by records committees (i.e., if indoubt, leave it out). Furthermore, all decisions made by theCLC are open to reevaluation should additional informationbecome available.

AcknowledgmentI thank Sartor O. Williams III, secretary of the New MexicoBird Records Committee, for providing the ABA ChecklistCommittee with extensive information about the EngleThick-billed Parrot.

The identity of this Thick-billed Parrot, which showed upin New Mexico in 2003, has not been questioned by theABA Checklist Committee. However, the Committee hasquestioned the birds origin and has determined that thebird was probably an escapee. Therefore, the Thick-billedParrot remains a Code 6 species on the ABA Checklist. Engle,New Mexico; June 2003. Christopher L. Wood.

Birding 08-06 Flightpath 6/12/06 1:34 PM Page 22