I made John Stewart (bird bone specialist) aware of this discussion
and he asked me to forwrd this reply to the list.
Alexis.
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date sent: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 14:05:31 +0000
From: John Stewart <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
To: Alexis Willett <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: (Fwd) Medieval birds in Britain -Reply
Dear All,
I agree with Dale. There should not idealy be any reason that the
quoted taxa should be misidentified except of course the pheasant
which can be a bastard to distinguish from chicken. However, the ruff
maybe another similarly sized wader. I might be also concerned about
the overlap in morphology between bittern and egret. It realy depends
on the skeletal elements and the condition of those elements. I regret
to say that I have come accross some more than ambitious ID's from
time to time.
Oh, and there was the new species of mediterranean island woodcock
which turned out to be a woodcock! see refs
Fischer, K. & Stephan, B. 1974. Eine pleistozäne Avifauna aus der Ghar
Dalam-Höhle, Malta. Zeitschrift für Geologische Wissenschaften
2:515-523.
Olson, S.L. 1976. Fossil woodcock: an extinct species from Puerto Rico
and an invalid species from Malta. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., 89: 265 -
274.
Birds can be very tricky to identify. The proximal end of a woodcock
humerus is uncannily like that of a small duck and the humerus of a
cuckoo is very close to that of a kestrel. I have found distal
tarsometatarsi of duck identified by such top notch bird workers as
Newton, Bramwell and Harrison identified as Lagopus. No one is imune!
(I include myself)
I hope that was of help.
Cheerio
John
--
John Stewart
Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 Project
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
University of Cambridge CB2 3ER United Kingdom
[log in to unmask] 01223 339353
Alexis Willett
Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service
Shire Hall
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk IP33 2AR
01284 352443
Please note: The views contained in this message
are those of the individual and do not necessarily
represent the views of the County Council.
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