Weary amateurs will find more advances in the scientific study of birds in what will soon be a new AOU (oops, sorry, AOS) checklist, based mostly on popular cheaper new studies made possible by analyses of DNA. The Audubon site http://www.audubon.org/news/here-are-biggest-changes-aou-checklist-north-american-birds has a helpful essay from Kenn Kaufmann explaining this yearly shake-up of the understood list. You can read more about it on the AOU site, as the votes have not yet been collected on these changes. KK does not mention the earth-shaking (or at least annoying) name change of the AOU to the AOS (American Ornithological Society); maybe "aou" has been found to be a curse word in some obscure language, who knows... Rejoice, Bill Whan ______________________________________________________________________ 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]