Changes to the New Zealand Checklist
December 9th, 2024
The 6th edition of the Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand can now be viewed on the Checklist page https://www.birdsnz.org.nz/society-publications/checklist/
The previous editions of the Checklist were published in 1953, 1970, 1990, 2010 and 2022, with the first four published as books and the 5th edition (2022) published as a pdf and as html webpages.
The 6th edition exists solely as updated webpages, with explanations of what has changed and why contained within the manuscript:
Amendments to the 5th edition (2022) of the Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand. Notornis 71(3): 93–114.
The amendments document can be viewed at https://www.birdsnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Checklist_Notornis_713_93-114.pdf
This signals a new phase in the evolution of the Checklist, which the Checklist Committee intends to update every 2 years. We have yet to decide whether to produce occasional pdf versions of the entire Checklist (e.g. once a decade), or whether the Checklist will exist solely as webpages from now on. This will depend partly on whether there is demand for a pdf version from you, the users. It will also be constrained by the technical challenges of creating a pdf from the webpages while ensuring that the content of the two versions remains identical.
The New Zealand checklist is a much more complex document than most (maybe all) other regional and global checklists. In addition to the basic list of scientific names (with authorities) and common names grouped within orders and families, it also provides comprehensive synonymies for each scientific name (the history of how and when each name changed after the taxon was originally described), and information on breeding and vagrant distributions. It is also exceptional in containing details for all fossil species.
The main source of new distribution information for vagrant birds in New Zealand are the biennial reports of the Records Appraisal Committee, which have been published in Notornis every 2 years since 2011. The 2023 report was the main source of new distributional information included in the 2024 edition of the Checklist, and Birds New Zealand intends to continue this pattern of the two documents being published in alternate years.
This means that there is now a much more rapid channel for your observations to end up in the Checklist. If you observe a reportable bird and submit an Unusual Bird Report that is accepted by the Records Appraisal Committee, the record should appear in an RAC report within 1–3 years of the UBR being received, and in the next Checklist update within 2–4 years (depending on the date of your UBR submission within the biennial cycle for both publications, and which issue of Notornis the two reports are published in). I know those numbers seem tediously slow in an era when everyone expects up-to-date information at the touch of a smartphone screen. However, it is a huge advance on waiting 20 years for the next Checklist to be published.
I make no apology for the Checklist only citing verified records that can be found in a published paper, rather than citing unverified sightings from online sources, including eBird, that may evaporate for any number of reasons. As an example, I note recent postings on this forum by eBird contributors saying that they have deleted their records or intend to do so.
For those interested in what has actually changed in terms of Checklist content since 2022, we have added three new vagrant bird species to the New Zealand list (black tern, black-naped tern, and Matsudaira’s storm petrel), along with entries for 11 newly-described fossil bird species. Two species splits have been made, with separate entries for Tibetan sand plover and Siberian sand plover (formerly lesser sand plover), and for fulmar prion and Pyramid prion. Genus changes include: sand plovers, red-capped plover, New Zealand dotterel and banded dotterel shifting to Anarhynchus; New Zealand shore plover and black-fronted dotterel returning to Charadrius; and banded rail returning to Hypotaenidia. Fairy prion is recognised as having two subspecies, with Pachyptila turtur eatoni being the form of prion that breeds on Heard Island. This means that lesser fulmar prion Pachyptila crassirostris flemingi is endemic to the Auckland Islands, and fulmar prion as a species is endemic to New Zealand (breeding only on Snares, Bounty, and Auckland Islands, but not on the Chatham Islands).
New Zealand Birds Online webpages will be created, updated, and their sequence re-organised to match the 6th edition Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand once I get back to the mainland.
Ngā mihi nui
Colin Miskelly
Checklist convenor