Birds of Singapore
by the Bird Society of Singapore
Following recent taxonomic changes, the Singapore Bird List adds the Black-headed Bunting as a genuine vagrant and replaces the Oriental White-eye with Swinhoe’s White-eye. This revision also updates the scientific name for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper and adjusts the Chinese names for several other local species to align with international standards.
The latest revision of the Singapore Bird List is now derived from IOC World Bird List Version 9.1. Changes are as follow: Addition: Black-headed Bunting – A single bird seen at Kranji Marsh/Neo Tiew Harvest Lane on 18th November 2018 (Martin Kennewell and friends). There are doubts about the condition of tail feathers, but the occurrence of other Black-headed Buntings during the same period including at least four on Mantanani Island off Sabah, Malaysia, one in Itbayat Island, Philippines and a couple in Thailand – makes for a compelling case that it’s a genuine vagrant. A search in the various bird shops did not yield any bunting species for sale. Replacement: Swinhoe’s White-eye takes the place of Oriental White-eye due to new revision on white-eyes taxonomy. (Lim, B.T.M., Sadanandan, K.R., Dingle, C. et al. J Ornithol (2019) 160: 1. Molecular evidence suggests radical revision of species limits in the great speciator white-eye genus Zosterops) Taxonomic change: Spoon-billed Sandpiper’s scientific name changed to Calidris pygmaea Language revision: Chinese names of the following birds have been revised: Common Moorhen, Square-tailed Drongo-Cuckoo, Eastern Barn Owl, Plume-toed Swiftlet, Blue-winged Pitta, Buff-vented Bulbul and Black-crested Bulbul The downloadable list (in Excel format) is available HERE.