A recent taxonomic revision of African spurfowl and francolins (family Phasianidae) proposed to recognise 16 new species. The authors suggested that divergence in cytochrome-b (CYTB) of >1.5% is sufficient to recognise taxa as species. Their molecular material was obtained mainly from museum specimens. However, the study contained errors with some registration numbers and identifications as recorded on specimen labels, and assumptions were made concerning some taxa for which no museum specimens were examined. Given that CYTB sequences among three specimens of the same taxon from the same location and population were divergent by 8%, their framework for delineating species in this group must be considered highly questionable. Other CYTB divergence between taxa ranked as subspecies of the same taxon by the authors of the study were mostly >1.5%, further undermining their hypothesis, and some CYTB data appear to have been selectively excluded. Zero CYTB sequence divergence between geographically distant subspecies suggests interbreeding between them and undermines the assumption that there is none (or it is limited), which was one of the criteria they used to separate species. In addition, existing distributional data were misinterpreted or overlooked, and their own taxonomic decisions were omitted from their updated distribution maps thereby compounding errors already resulting from a misinterpretation of regional distributional data. Brief morphological descriptions were also provided, but not all taxa of some species were examined and sexual plumage dimorphism for others was ignored, producing some significant errors. Consequently, I conclude that these proposed new species should be rejected in the absence of further and more robust evidence.

Bougainville is a mountainous tropical island in Melanesia, reaching 2,712 m at Mt. Balbi, the highest elevation in the tropical South Pacific outside of New Guinea. In 1972, J. Diamond climbed the active stratovolcano to c.2,000 m and provided detailed information on its montane avifauna. Fifty years later, the elevational distribution of birds on Mt. Balbi was resurveyed in November 2022, this time to the summit. Twenty-nine of the 37 bird species for which Diamond had provided elevation data were found at higher elevations than 50 years ago. In total, 35 species were found at new max. elevations.

The white-speckled raven, a colour aberration of the Faeroese Common Raven Corvus corax varius Brünnich, 1764, has occurred on the Faeroe Islands since at least the Middle Ages and was always prized by collectors. In the second half of the 19th century while the Faeroese raven population was suffering intense persecution, pied individuals were even more severely hunted, and were extinct by the early 20th century. Twenty-six specimens had been recorded so far in different museum collections, but a 27th has now come to light in the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo. The collector is unknown but given the collection date, 1846, it was probably an islander rather than a foreign collector.

On 18 April 2022, a Killdeer Charadrius vociferus was photographed in the municipality of Ceará-Mirim, Rio Grande do Norte, north-east Brazil, the first record in Brazil and the southernmost on the Atlantic coast of South America.

Le Beffroi Musée Boucher de Perthes-Manessier, Abbeville, France, houses an ornithological collection totalling 2,597 mounted birds, principally from the 19th century. According to the current IUCN Red List of threatened species, the mounts represent 112 extinct or endangered (‘E&E’) bird taxa (156 specimens in total). We list the specimens of ‘E&E’ taxa that merit special curatorial attention. The list includes nine Extinct taxa (Greater Prairie Chicken Tympanuchus c. cupido, Passenger Pigeon Ectopistes migratorius, Snail-eating Coua Coua delalandei, Great Auk Pinguinus impennis, Norfolk Island Kaka Nestor productus, Carolina Parakeet Conuropsis carolinensis, Nuku Hiva Monarch Pomarea nukuhivae, South Island Piopio Turnagra c. capensis and Slender-billed Grackle Quiscalus palustris), one Extinct in the Wild (Guam Kingfisher Todiramphus cinnamominus) and 38 threatened species and subspecies. In addition to IUCN status, the EDGE (Evolutionary Distinctiveness and Globally Endangered) score for each species is specified.

Coua cristata maxima, known by nothing more than a unique specimen taken in south-east Madagascar in 1948, was distinguished by its greater size than other subspecies of Crested Coua C. cristata (of which pyropyga, sometimes accorded species rank, is the largest) and by its shorter crest, bluer upperparts, wings and tail, fully cinnamon-tawny underparts and mid-sized white tail tips. A separate assessment of the holotype published in 1997 made various refinements to this diagnosis, and our own examination found the facial configuration seemingly inconsistent with that of pyropyga, showing a weaker superciliary line and possibly a reduced area of bare skin around the eye, although these features may, like the short crest, simply be indications of immaturity. Even if they are, however, maxima appears too distinct to retain subspecific rank: it seems more likely to be either a full species or, as first intimated in 1997, a hybrid. Four of the six Coua species around the type locality cannot be possible parents, but seven features of the holotype are consistent with a Blue Coua C. caerulea × C. cristata pairing. Molecular investigation is urgently needed to determine whether maxima is a valid species. If it is, it will either be highly threatened or extinct; little-known hinterland forest from Manafiafy (35 km north-east of Taolagnaro) north at least to Manantenina has been identified for survey.

The subspecies of Barbary Partridge Alectoris barbara confined to northeast Libya and adjacent Egypt, A. b. barbata, has recently been posited to merit species rank, with the additional suggestion that it might be among the Western Palearctic's most threatened avian taxa. As a first step to assessing its conservation status, we review the distribution and habitat of A. b. barbata by collating all records and information available to us, including published literature, unpublished observations and museum holdings, adding evidence to the taxonomic issue by measuring 12 previously uninspected specimens. We identify and map 53 localities, with most (and all recent) records coming from the Jebel Akhdar massif, an area of relatively lush uplands in north-west Cyrenaica, Libya. We trace no certain record from Egypt since 1964. Hunting is blamed for widespread declines in populations but habitat degradation away from the Jebel Akhdar may have caused a considerable range contraction. A systematic survey of the Jebel Akhdar is needed to determine the species' conservation status. We agree that Cyrenaica Partridge A. barbata is a species, and add new data on its bolder flank stripes and longer tail.

Little is known about the natural history of many species of Neotropical birds, with descriptions of the nests of many species still lacking or incomplete. Published descriptions exist for five of the seven species of Tolmomyias flatbills. Here, we provide the first such data for Olive-faced Flatbill T. viridiceps on the basis of three nests, one each in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. As typical for the genus, the nest is a closed, retort-shaped, pensile structure suspended from a limb; in two cases, nests were sited close to an active paper wasp (Vespidae) nest. In each of four instances when we obtained photos as an adult left the Peru nest, it exited the entrance tube backwards, rather than head-first.

We provide new information on the status, occurrence and ecology of birds in Bolivia gathered during seven years of avifaunal surveys (2017–23), with a focus on aquatic birds, as well as regions such as the Chaco, the Yungas, and Pando. We document five new species for Chuquisaca (Quebracho Crested Tinamou Eudromia formosa, Sharp-billed Canastero Asthenes pyrrholeuca, Scimitar-billed Woodcreeper Drymornis bridgesii, Brown Cacholote Pseudoseisura lophotes, Black-crested Finch Lophospingus pusillus), two for Tarija (Rufous-sided Crake Laterallus melanophaius, Red-backed Sierra Finch Idiopsar brachyurus), two for Pando (Uniform Crake Amaurolimnas concolor, Mississippi Kite Ictinia mississippiensis), two for Beni (Rusty-margined Guan Penelope superciliaris, Connecticut Warbler Oporornis agilis), two for Santa Cruz (Cloud-forest Screech Owl Megascops marshalli, Geoffroy's Daggerbill Schistes geoffroyi) and one for Cochabamba (Fiery-capped Manakin Machaeropterus pyrocephalus). Additionally, we provide the first breeding evidence for one subspecies (Patagonian Grebe Podiceps occipitalis occipitalis) and a range-wide elevational maximum for Hauxwell's Thrush Turdus hauxwelli.

We provide the first description of the nest of Sulphur-rumped Tanager Heterospingus rubrifrons, which was found at Veragua Rainforest Reserve, Limón province, Costa Rica, in June 2023. The nest was sited atop the base of a palm frond, 5 m above ground, and consisted of two layers of different material and a ‘tail’, similar to the nests of closely related species in the Hemithraupinae subfamily.

I report new data on the breeding biology of Azure-shouldered Tanager Thraupis cyanoptera based on two nests found in Santa Catarina, southern Brazil, in 2021 and 2023. Nests were shallow cups attached by the base, and their composition included large dry bromeliad leaves, long filaments of a Microgramma vine, small sticks, pine needles, dry bamboo leaves and fungal rhizomorphs. Clutch size was three in both nests. Eggs were oval (mean 25.6 × 17.9 mm; 4.7 g), with a white/cream background and small brown spots distributed throughout but concentrated at the larger end. Incubation period has not previously been reported; it is 14–15 days, similar to congeners. Newly hatched nestlings had closed eyes, pinkish skin and a brown down covering their head, back and wings; they were fed by both adults.

White-fronted Swift Cypseloides storeri is a poorly known species whose nest has not been described. Here I provide details of two nests, found in June 2022 near Tacámbaro, Michoacán, Mexico. The data from two breeding sites, each at a waterfall with a single nest, indicate that the breeding season commences at the start of the rainy season. I inspected the contents of one nest which held a single nestling; this coincides with clutch information for other Cypseloides. Both nests were in the spray zone near vertically falling water and were protected from above by a rock roof. Photographs of adults at the nest show that the diagnostic facial marks are brighter than illustrated in field identification guides.

A recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA argued that Giant Hummingbird Patagona gigas comprises two species (‘northern’ and ‘southern’) that differ in morphology, migratory behaviour and, especially, genetics. This proposal merits close consideration, but the introduction of a new name, ‘P. chaski’, for the northern population is unwarranted, as the taxon concerned had already been described, as Patagona peruviana Boucard, 1893. Failure by the authors of ‘P. chaski’ to identify and check the syntypes of P. peruviana, which unambiguously correspond to the same morphotype and taxon as ‘P. chaski’, resulted in the unnecessary erection of a ‘new species’ described already more than a century ago. Here we stabilise nomenclature by designating a lectotype for P. peruviana of which ‘P. chaski’ is a junior synonym.