Proposal
(#24) to South American Classification Committee
Add
Piranga ludoviciana (Western Tanager) to main list
This is a quick one.
In the most recent Cotinga there is a short article on the occurrence of
Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana) in the Netherland Antilles. This
appears to be a new record for South America, but unfortunately the published
photos in the magazine were extremely poor in quality. Perhaps to rectify this,
Cotinga has put a version of this paper on their web site with nice photos of
the bird in question:
http://www.neotropicalbirdclub.org/feature/cotinga18/westerntanager.html
The photo is
published, although unidentifiable in the journal, so this deserves to be voted
on as the first record for this species in South America unless there are other
records out there that I am unaware of.
As the bird is
unambiguously a male Western Tanager I am comfortable in accepting this species
to the list, so vote yes on it. The date is a little odd, but this does not
bother me at all.
Alvaro
Jaramillo
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Comments from
Schulenberg: "My vote is "Yes". No
question of what the bird is (in the photographs on the website, *not* the
images that were published!), and I see no reason to doubt that the photographs
were taken where the authors said that they were taken."
Comments from Zimmer:
"I checked out the photos on the Cotinga website. Clearly a Western
Tanager, so please record my "yes" vote for the proposal to add this
species to the list. We get adult male Westerns moving through our yard in late
June-early July as well, nearly every year. They definitely start moving early."
Comments from Stotz:
"Although the published photo is very poor, I actually do think it is
identifiable."