Several years ago, we at BirdsInFocus.com made an internal commitment to synchronize our website’s taxonomy with the annually updated eBird/Clements Checklist. This has allowed us to stay as current as possible, for every bird species in the world, on the nomenclature now used by a rapidly growing majority of the world’s birders.
It’s always a labor-intensive process, and ironic health issues prevented me from completing the 2017 updates until this year, but I’m very pleased to announce that we’re now back on schedule. We incorporated all of the 2017 and 2018 taxonomic revisions just one week after eBird released its 2018 updates, making BirdsInFocus once again one of the most up-to-date bird photography websites in the world.
We now have nearly 12,000 high-quality photos online representing 2,153 species of birds from 30 countries on six continents, several islands, and at sea. With the latest taxonomic updates, we’ve added two new orders and six new families:
New in 2017:
- Cathartiformes (New World Vultures)
- Passerellidae (New World Buntings and Sparrows)
- Phaenicophilidae (Hispaniolan Tanagers)
- Nesospingidae (Puerto Rican Tanager)
- Spindalidae (Spindalises)
- Icteriidae (Yellow-breasted Chat)
New in 2018:
- Musophagiformes (Turacos)
- Oceanitidae (Southern Storm-Petrels)
At the species level, dozens of common and/or scientific names have changed to reflect new research, and our net species total has increased by three:
- Talamanca Hummingbird, split from Rivoli’s Hummingbird (combined as Magnificent Hummingbird until 2017)
Talamanca Hummingbird by Judd Patterson
- Southern Emerald-Toucanet, split from Northern Emerald-Toucanet (combined as Emerald Toucanet until 2017)
Southern Emerald-Toucanet by Bob Gress
- Foothill Screech-Owl, split from Choco Screech-Owl and Middle American Screech-Owl (all combined as Vermiculated Screech-Owl until 2018)
Foothill Screech-Owl by Bob Gress
