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 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]