Birding in Egypt’s Provisional Checklist of the Birds of Egypt

Explanation of Content

Why a Provisional Checklist?

This checklist uses the immediacy of the Web to make available a provisional list of the birds that occur, or have occurred in Egypt. It is provisional because in the time since the publication of the Birds of Egypt, (Goodman et al 1989) there has been no continuous and agreed method of validating observations and records. However, in January 2010, the Egyptian Ornithological Rarities Committee (EORC) was re-established under the chairmanship of Frédéric Jiguet, and it is now the recognised authority to evaluate all bird observations in Egypt. Because there is a large backlog for the EORC to tackle, this checklist will remain provisional for some considerable time through a series of amendments consequent to EORC decisions. We expect that the status of some species we list therefore will change.

Basis of the Provisional Checklist

This provisional checklist follows, as fundamental references, Dickinson (2003: The Howard & Moore Checklist of Birds of the World, 3rd edition, H&M3 for short), for general taxonomic order and sequence, and the International Ornithological Committee for preferred English names at www.worldbirdnames.org: eg IOC 2010, Gill, F, M Wright & D Donsker (IOC World Bird Names version 2.3), which updates the original Gill & Wright (2006: Birds of the World: Recommended English Names). The pace and extent of modern ornithological research requires taxonomic developments to be reviewed constantly; the Ornithological Society of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia (OSME) has produced a constantly-evolving Region List of Bird Taxa, or OSME Region List (ORL) (Porter et al 2009). Consequently, this list generally follows the decisions and judgements emanating from the approach taken in ORL, whose management team includes a taxonomist. The ORL has had access to many of the changes being considered for the forthcoming H&M4. For the ORL’s rationale, see the Introductory Material at www.osme.org. However, many taxonomic decisions are based on interpretations of complex data and often should prudently be regarded as the best assessments of the available information, liable to later modification by subsequent research. Lastly, please note that many apparently authoritative Internet bird lists have unreliable content; such lists usually lack underpinning references.

The original Birds of Egypt (1989) checklist must be the starting point for EORC decisions, but also will always be invaluable as context for earlier material by reputable ornithologists such as Charles Vaurie (1977). The recommendations on taxonomic matters by many external bodies such as the British Ornithological Union (BOU) and the American Ornithological Union (AOU) will always be taken into account, but please note that these may consider only taxa that occur in their ‘region’. See the ‘Example of taxonomic uncertainties’ below. In order to express complexities related to the use of scientific names for a taxon’s population, the ORL uses square brackets […] to indicate allospecies or superspecies; however, this provisional Egypt Checklist follows suit only where we feel that an ambiguity would otherwise arise. There is no need for observers to use square brackets this way in any species lists submitted. Round brackets (…) are used where there appear to be some unresolved (perhaps documented but not peer-reviewed) differences of opinion or interpretation of a species’ taxonomic status, or where uncertainties persist (eg in unmapped breeding distributions). We would appreciate it if correspondents adopted this convention.

Taxonomic knowledge about many families, genera and species has increased enormously since the 1980s. As a result, two developments are apparent. The first is that inevitably there has been a revolution in understanding, and so the ‘traditional’ lists of such as Peters, Vaurie and Voous have been changed radically and quite often; quite understandably, many who had become accustomed to the older lists over many years are unhappy with the inconvenience of these changes. However, all three of these great ornithologists were quite adamant that research would change their understanding and would compel changes in taxonomic lists (eg see Karel Voous’ foreword in The EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds – Hagemeijer & Blair 1996). The second development is that this new knowledge has revealed a host of subtleties, especially from DNA-related studies. Not only are these often far from being wholly understood, but also in a small but increasing number of cases they reflect relationships between bird taxa that cannot be wholly categorised neatly into species and subspecies. The implications are that further changes to lists are inevitable. This is precisely why we try to reflect these uncertainties in this provisional checklist, rather than ‘forcing’ taxa into a taxonomic category that does not fit.

Structure of this Provisional Checklist

This provisional checklist is in four parts, Non-passerine, Passerine, Hypothetical and References. The first two categories are self-explanatory, but the third contains:

It is indeed unfortunate that a number of species claimed by birders, though doubtless identified correctly, cannot be accepted except as Hypothetical or as ‘reports’ in Parts 1 and 2, because sufficient pertinent detail has not been made available to the checklist compilers. Sometimes contact with the observer has been lost, but in a few cases it is due to a refusal to supply such information. Part 4, the Reference List, aims eventually to provide authoritative references for every entry; traditionally, it also includes many historical references.

The Hypothetical List includes a few references to specimens, mostly now held in the Grenoble Natural History Museum, collected by Clot-Bey up to about 1841. Many Clot-Bey ‘records’ have been omitted from this provisional checklist because there are many difficulties with that and other early collections. For example, at that time, the French name ‘Egypte’ was applied to an undefined area, usually including present-day Sudan and probably much of eastern Libya; all too often the specimens are labelled with like vagueness. Furthermore, it was also customary for collectors, while based for several months in one place, to make known to local people over a wide area that they would be paid for bringing in specimens. Moreover, these could have been traded earlier from distant parts; even a precise label might then refer only to the location where the specimen was purchased. Lastly, it was then the fashion for the more colourful specimens in some ‘collections’ to be mounted in small tableaus to decorate the houses of the rich: many who followed this fad would pay larger sums for exotic-looking examples; the more ‘exotic’ the tableau, the greater the challenge to the taxidermist’s skills. Such decorations may comprise individual ‘birds’ assembled from a number of different bird species. The fashion for colourful birds was an added incentive for distant traders to obtain birds that inhabited locations remote from the collector’s base. Many species that have been claimed in the past as having occurred within the modern borders of Egypt are therefore of extremely doubtful authenticity.

This and every other modern checklist also must address the problem of all records attributed to Meinertzhagen. The evidence that, especially in later life, he compulsively and systematically rearranged specimens in many collections worldwide to suit his claimed observations or the birds he ‘collected’, is compelling and documented in detail. Furthermore, Garfield (2007) makes a persuasive case that Meinertzhagen, when it suited him, behaved no differently in all other aspects of his life. In general, his early ornithological work (including his involvement with the birds of Egypt) is very probably much more reliable than his later work, but for any author or compiler of subsequent ornithological material, each case has to be assessed on its merits.

This provisional checklist includes records from the Hal’aib Triangle, which in terms of international law, can be regarded legally as part of Egypt, but is administered by Sudan on the basis of the integrity of the ethnic groups therein, which is a credit to the wisdom of both countries.

This provisional checklist is for everyone interested in ornithology and birding and has been assembled as ‘open-source’ material for non-commercial use. It may be copied and distributed to colleagues, but it would be appreciated that if you cite this provisional checklist, the citation should be ‘István Moldován and Michael Blair’, (date), Birds in Egypt Provisional Checklist, version x.y’ or similar. However, for any commercial use of this provisional checklist, please contact the authors beforehand. Please help us to improve this provisional checklist, by helping to correct any errors and by submitting your records to us. It will be amended as decisions are published by the EORC.

General Notes

1 - All boat trips on Lake Nasser referred to in the text were funded by GAINS with the support of EEAA (eg to Aswan and Wed Abdu from Wadi Ryan).

2 - Many subspecies names included in old records are now known or generally agreed to be invalid; most stated here as invalid have been subsumed in the scientific name listed, usually an extant subspecies or monotypic species. Here we generally follow Dickinson 2003, in which footnotes often indicate supporting and dissenting opinions.

3 - Example of taxonomic uncertainties: Gulls and terns

'Sternidae' nowadays is included in Laridae, but is retained below merely for convenience. Only some of the revised genera of Chu 1998 (eg Chroicocephalus, Hydrocoleus), have been adopted so far. The sequence now (including placing noddies and skimmers ahead of gulls) aligns with IOC update v2.0, but revised genera accepted in v2.1 that we have not yet adopted are mentioned. Consequently, we are closer to the BOU's acceptance of taxonomic changes (Sangster et al 2007) than to the AOU's.

NB1 For useful overview of lack of taxonomic clarity of gull taxa, see Newton 2003. Also see Kerr et al 2007: results of Nearctic species’ genetic ‘barcode’ large-scale trial.

NB2 It is preferable to await resolution of the two main arguments for the gull and tern taxa sequence changes, some of which may be too radical.

NB3 Recent DNA research (eg Collinson et al 2008) is strong, but there are more than a few examples of non-alignment of molecular, biometric and morphological data (eg as consistently documented by Pierre Yésou); it is therefore prudent to decline to express certainty about several taxa, but important to keep the context in view.

References cited in the ‘Explanation of Content’

Chu, PC 1998. A phylogeny of the gulls (Aves: Larinae) inferred from osteological and integumentary characters. Cladistics 14: 1-43.

Collinson, JM, DT Parkin, AG Knox, G Sangster and L Svensson. 2008. Species boundaries in the Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gull complex. Brit. Birds 101(7): 340-363.

Dickinson, EC. 2003. (Ed). The Howard and Moore complete checklist of the birds of the world. 3rd edn. Christopher Helm. London. UK.

Garfield, B. 2007. (Ed). The Meinertzhagen mystery – the life and legend of a colossal fraud. Potomac. Washington DC. USA.

Gill, F, and M Wright. 2006. (Ed). Birds of the World: Recommended English Names. Princeton University Press. Princeton New Jersey. USA/Christopher Helm. London. UK.

Goodman, SM, PL Meininger, S Baha el Din, JJ Hobbs and WC Mullié. 1989. (Ed). The Birds of Egypt. OUP. Oxford. UK.

Hagemeijer, WJM and MJ Blair. 1997. (Eds). The EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds. T&AD Poyser. London. UK.

IOC. 2010. International Ornithological Congress. Update v2.3. Gill, F, M Wright and D Donsker. 2010. IOC World Bird Names (version 2.3).

Kerr, KCR, MY Stoeckle, CJ Dove, LA Weigt, CM Francis and PDN Hebert. 2007. Comprehensive DNA barcode coverage of North American birds. Mol. Ecol. Notes. (OnlineEarlyArticles) 17 Jan 07. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-8286.2006.01670.

Newton, I. 2003. The Speciation and Biogeography of Birds. Academic Press. London. UK.

Porter, RF, S Aspinall, S Preddy and MJ Blair. 2010. The OSME Region List of Bird Taxa v 2.0 August 2009. http://www.osme.org

Sangster, G, JM Collinson, AG Knox, DT Parkin and L Svensson, 2007. Taxonomic recommendations for British Birds – fourth report. Ibis 149: 853-857.

Abbreviations used

Status in Egypt:

FB = former breeder
RB = resident breeder
MB = migrant breeder
CB = casual breeder
IB = introduced breeder
PV = passage visitor
AV = accidental visitor
E = extinct
(…) = abbreviations in round brackets: variable or irregular status

? or (?) = status uncertain

General abbreviations

AERC TAC = Association of European Records and Rarities Committees – Taxonomic Committee

BMNH = British Museum of Natural History
bp = breeding pairs

EEAA = Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency

FNHM = French natural History Museum
GAINS = Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance

GZM = Giza Zoological Museum
FYR = Former Yugoslav Republic
ORL = OSME Region List (www.osme.org)

OSME = Ornithological Society of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

SEEN= South East European Network (ringing scheme of Gdansk University, Poland)

UMMZ = University of Michigan Museum of Zoology

WGNP = Wadi Gamal National Park

Other abbreviations

IM or (IM) = István Moldován, author of this checklist: e-mail idegenvezeto@yahoo.com