Name ABA
Source Page https://www.aba.org/aba-checklist/
Source Link https://www.aba.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ABA_Checklist-8.16.csv.zip
Version Number 8.16
Version Date September 2024 (from website) or 2024-07-10 (from taxonomy file)
Entry Count 1,158 after duplicating eBird names (see #1 below)
Citation N/A
Retrieval Date 2025-11-05
Notes 1. The taxonomy includes both eBird-Clements and AOS names if they disagree. When they disagree, the taxonomy lists both and places the AOS name in parentheses. If I did not do anything, then your input would have to exactly match these unconventional names. What I did was to remove the parentheses and list both names in the taxonomy so either is available to match your input. I put the AOS name second. This means that if you have both Pacific Swift (eBird name) and Fork-tailed Swift (AOS name) in your input, they come out as two separate birds. It also means that for needs lists, you might see both names, or you might see one name if you have the other as input meaning it’ll seem like you need a bird when you don’t. It’s not a great situation. Here are the pairs as I’ve put them into the taxonomy:
  • Erckel's Spurfowl
    Erckel's Francolin
  • Common Wood-Pigeon
    Common Wood Pigeon
  • Pacific Swift
    Fork-tailed Swift
  • Antillean Palm Swift
    Antillean Palm-Swift
  • Eurasian Moorhen
    Common Moorhen
  • Gray-headed Swamphen
    Purple Swamphen
  • Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross
    Yellow-nosed Albatross
  • Barn Owl
    American Barn Owl
  • Chinese Hwamei
    Hwamei
  • House Wren
    Northern House Wren
  • Amur Stonechat
    Asian Stonechat
(Maybe I should just make two different ABA taxonomies—one with the eBird names and one with the AOS names.)

2. There’s one case where the above breaks down: Blue Rock-Thrush (Rock-thrush). My site can’t currently handle different bird names that differ only in capitalization, so I only added Blue Rock-Thrush to the taxonomy.

3. The taxonomy doesn’t generally include spuh species like the eBird taxonomy does, but this release has Wandering Albatross (sp.) to account for the unresolved difficulties with this complex. On this page they talk about the four-way split of the Wandering Albatross that some authorities have accepted. One of the new species is Antipodean Albatross. eBird shows a few records of this bird in Oregon and California. The ABA hasn’t accepted Antipodean Albatross onto its taxonomy and Wandering Albatross remains on the AOS taxonomy.

4. The taxonomy includes several extinct species. I have left them in place. They are: Labrador Duck (extinct 1858), Passenger Pigeon (extinct 1914), Eskimo Curlew (extinct 1962), Great Auk (extinct 1844), Ivory-billed Woodpecker (extinct 1944), Carolina Parakeet (extinct 1939), and Bachman's Warbler (extinct 1937).

5. The taxonomy has year ranges following certain birds. These ranges are the years when these species were countable in the ABA area. I have left these birds out of the taxonomy since they are not currently countable. Leave me feedback if you wish to see them in the taxonomy with the reasoning as to why I should add them back in. Here’s the list of birds I left out: African Collared-Dove (1969-1994), Budgerigar (1975-2015), Yellow-headed Parrot (1975-1982), Crested Myna (1969-2003), and Blue-gray Tanager (1969-1982).

6. It probably seems inconsistent to leave in the extinct birds but remove the date-range birds. I agree, but I’m guided by how the ABA itself sees these two sets of birds. If you look at the count of species the ABA shows with its checklist, it counts the extinct birds but not the date-range birds, so in some way the ABA gives more importance to the extinct birds. My guess is this is due to the extinct birds once had long-lived (millennia), established populations in the ABA area while the date-range birds did not (decades at best).

7. The taxonomy includes a number of provisional species that might be establishing populations such as Swinhoe’s White-eye. I have not included any of these.