u/Pardalote_Enjoyer

This isn't really an important issue, I'm more just curious if anyone knows anything about this. I've tried googling it but I've not really found anything.

For context, I've been enjoying colouring in my map on my profile at the third tier of government (where available) and noticed the ebird map and the official NSW, Australia map doesn't line up. There's a whole story there and ebird may just be waiting around for the situation to stabilise, but it piqued my curiosity.

So for anyone that isn't aware, you can view a list of all the birds you've reported, including where you saw it for the first time.

I'm travelling at the moment and excitedly watching my life list climb but I was very confused to see some birds show up near the top that I had definitely seen many times before. I thought it was a bug at first, but then realised that I had seen multiple birds today within their native range for the first time, and ebird has updated the place I've first seen them to those locations.

(Also I may be mixing up terms here, I know eBird has a specific system for categorising exotics but I haven't cross referenced it when making this post. Just putting in that disclaimer for if something doesn't make sense)

This concept was first bought to my attention by signs at a wetland walk describing the "intermediate egret", which as a newer birder I had never heard of. Upon further investigation I found that the Australian subspecies, the plumed egrets, had been split off into its own species. I've since also learned of the Gull Billed/Australian Tern split, and going back a while, even the Australian/Little Raven split.

I'm just curious if anyone knows of any new species that may be found in Australia through just having a closer look at known species? Or multiple species that may be merged upon closer inspection?

edit: missed the part in my story about the plumed egret.