Brilliant - I look forward to using it.

Cheers, Ian

The scientific names for all of the subspecies that you mention now occur within the BOU list, so the next update should serve your purposes. The warblers should all be covered as well.

Best wishes,
John

As you know, I am waiting to be able to enter Pied/White Wagtails separately. I have just done a review of records over the last eight years and found that I will need to be able to differentiate between the following, as well:

Greater White-fronted Goose, Anser albifrons
Greater White-fronted Goose (Greenland race), Anser albifrons flavirostris
Greater White-fronted Goose (Siberian race), Anser albifrons albifrons

Brent Goose, Branta bernicla
Brent Goose (dark-bellied), Branta bernicla bernicla
Brent Goose (pale-bellied), Branta bernicla hrota
Black Brant, Branta bernicla nigricans

Yellow Wagtail, Motacilla flava flavissima
Yellow Wagtail (blue-headed), Motacilla flava flava
Yellow Wagtail (grey-headed), Motacilla flava thunbergi

As yet, in north-east Wales I have not had to grapple with subspecies of many warblers, so will leave them for another time.

Will these be included in the awaited dictionary upgrade? My fingers are crossed!

Cheers, Ian

Thanks for the heads up regarding the paper. We'll follow the BOU regarding promotion of subspecies to species, but the paper should help to clarify the situation in my mind at least!

I just want to reaffirm that we'll be providing Sarah with an update by the 16th November, and this will contain all subspecies scientific names.

Best wishes,
John

Going back to an earlier question, the following paper may give some guidance - it seems that some subspecies have been split into species that have been given 'new' English names. However, it seems that subspecies do not, necessarily, have separate English names - Pied and White Wagtails seeming to be exceptions.

Splitting headaches? Recent taxonomic changes affecting the British and Western Palearctic lists
British Birds 99:6, 306-323   (92)

The use of scientific names for subspecies will not be a problem! I look forward to the announcement of when the dictionary upgrade is available.

Cheers, Ian

Unfortunately the next update has been delayed :(, mainly due to further issues reported that need to be addressed.

We are hoping to receive an updated copy of the dictionary from the NHM on the 16th November (just got this date today after returning from annual leave). We will then create the update for Recorder 6, test and release as soon as possible (which I'm hoping will take about a week).

I'll ensure that this specific issue is checked and double-checked :) !!

Once again apologies for any inconvienence caused - we'll make the changes available as soon as we can.

Regards and best wishes,

Has there been any progress on this front and is a dictionary update for this long-overdue aspect imminent?

Cheers, Ian

Thanks for the info. I am not able to talk about taxonomic issues generally, but know that the names Pied and White Wagtail have been in common use for many years. However, they are but one example of all possible subspecies splits. Sarah mentioned before that subspecies would need latin names - so long as the Import Wizard works with them I will be happy. All my searches in the Import Wizard to date have been with the English names from the BOU list.

All the best, Ian

All bird subspecies recognised by the BOU have been incorporated into the master copy of the database and an update will be supplied to the Recorder team within the next fortnight. The delay has arisen because there are a number of other revisions that we wish to complete before a new database is released.

The update only includes the scientific names for subspecies, as the 2006 BOU listing does not recognise common names below species level. Hence you'll need to search for bird subspecies via their scientific names.  This shouldn't matter and in any case you'll presumably be storing records against the scientific name.

I haven't managed to bottom out whether there is an internationally accepted system for subspecies common names (I'm waiting for a reply from the BOU and there is significant variance between the main datasets/schemas that exist). Any advice that you can provide will be gratefully received!

Please accept my apologies for the delay with this.

John

Has there been any progress with producing a dictionary upgrade with the Pied/ White Wagtail split? Is it likely to be available soon?

Cheers, Ian

Best wishes,
John