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All: It was good to get the AOU changes alerted by Clarence Stevens in the Daily Mail. It adds to the frequent impression on this list that species nomenclature, not only birds, can be very unstable; that's a good thing, since it reflects increasing knowledge. A couple of amplifications may be useful. Don MacNeil, and others who have ticked "Blue Grouse" might want to look up the range maps of the newly minted Dusky and Sooty Grouse - several web sources. That might allow them to claim one or the other on the basis of their respective ranges. That's a pretty weak way to do it, and of course descriptions or photos would be a bit more legitimate, but hey . . . Although Cory's is reckoned by some as a rare bird in NS waters, in my view it is not uncommon here. I've seen them whenever I've been offshore - and sometimes not very far off - after mid August and well into fall. Patience during the right winds at Chebucto Head should give you a tick. A few of us have been looking for Cape Verde Shearwater for some years but there are no photo records and, as far as I know, no Canadian specimens lurking in trays of Cory's Sheharwater. In fact, as far as I know, there is only one North American record, of a bird photographed off NC in August 2004. The bird's bill shape and colour and its underwing pattern are quite distinct from Cory's, but is quite a long shot here. To add to the confusion, there is another Cory's issue. The species consists of two field-distinguishable a Mediterranean and Atlantic subspecies. These, however, are unlikely to be "split" on the basis of current genetic information. There are are other tubenose species out there for which there is a real paucity of records - Little Shearwater (seen last year well off Sable Island), White-faced Storm-Petrel (one good sighting), and Audubon's Shearwater (a handful of plausible reports). Perhaps the most probable genuine novelty here would be one-time subspecies of Manx Shearwater now split by European committees as one (or two) distinct species - the Yelkouan and Baleareac Shearwaters. Years ago, the redoubtable Dick Brown (see Tufts, 3d edition) had a sighting over NE Georges Bank in June of a Manx Shearwater with markedly brownish upperparts that "possibly belonged to . . .yelkouan." It would be great if we could revive the tradition of late-summer and fall offshore pelagic trips out of Halifax (or even better, Cape Sable Island). Cheers, Ian
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