The American Ornithologists' Union, which is the authority by which most
of us organize and understand the birds of North and South America,
regularly considers proposals for changes that advance that
understanding, and a new batch has appeared on their web site at
http://checklist.aou.org/nacc/proposals/current_proposals.html  . Many
of them are superficially not pertinent to Ohio birders: The rich
tradition of ornithology in central and south America is catching up
with lots of new contributions, and of course occurrences of weird
seabirds will never catch up. Still, I saw four proposals of immediate
interest to Ohioans.
        1. a new species name is proposed for the tree sparrow (some of you
will recognize the name of the lead author--Dave Slager, who until not
so long ago contributed to field work here in Ohio).
        2. a split is proposed among two populations of painted buntings in the
US. Ohio records of this species are rare enough that they are perhaps
equally unlikely, but if this proposal is accepted
existing Ohio records might change, and we will have to learn how to
distinguish any new occurrences.
        3. a new proposal addresses the vexed issue of using American rather
than British spellings of common English names of birds. An interesting
read. This is an old controversy of course. It also seems unlikely to
change. Where do the Canadians stand??
        4. finally, a proposal makes a case for SIX species of what we now call
Northern Cardinals. Enjoy.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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