Talk:List of North American birds: passerines

As currently constituted, the List of North American birds is not really a list of North American birds at all, but is more properly a list of the birds of the continental United States and Canada. As ecognized by geographers, the North American continent also includes Central America from Mexico through Panama, plus the Caribbean Islands. A comprehensive list of the birds of North America is readily available in the AOU’s Check-list of North American birds; one only has to delete those species recorded only in the Hawaiian Islands. Instead, the current list is arbitrarily confined to that portion of North America covered by the ABA Checklist (i.e., the continental United States and Canada), thereby creating an incomplete and anglo-centric view of the continents birdlife. The reasons given for doing so--(1) a comprehensive list would be too long, and (2) most North American bird field guides restrict themselves to the U.S. and Canada--ring hollow. I see two possible solutions: (1) use the AOU Check-list of North American birds to create a truly comprehensive List of the birds of North America, or (2) rename this list the List of birds of the continental United States and Canada. John Trapp 14:13, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * The people who have actually written the species accounts for this article (notably Big iron are happy with the title as defined, and the availability of dependable (ie printed) sources is important. Of course, if you are intending to write species accounts for those Mexican and central America species which are not on the ABA list, that might be a different matter.

(copied to John Trapp's talh page) jimfbleak 18:31, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)