Italian Bird Rarities Committee (COI) - Report 29

Italian Birds Rarities Committee (COI) - Report 29. This report refers to records from January 1st to December 31st 2019, with the addition of a number of records from previous years that were submitted more recently. For each species, the records are listed by date and information is given as follows: English and scientific name, number of accepted records pre-  and post-1950 (the numbers in this abstract refer to the total number of records), number of individuals if more than one, age or plumage and sex if known, location, date, names of the observers, and documentation (photograph, sound recording, specimen, etc.). Taxonomy follow the new CISO-COI Italian Checklist (https://www.ciso-coi.it/coi/checklist-ciso-coi-degli-uccelli-italiani/), which also includes subspecies and follows the taxonomy adopted by the HBW-BirdLife Check-list, as decided by the CISO council in 2018. A total of 35 submissions involving 25 taxa were assessed. The following 30 records, involving 23 taxa, were accepted, including four first records for Italy (Cat. AERC: A – COI Category 1A, 1B): Pallas’s Sandgrouse Syrraptes paradoxus (Tuscany 1961; 2nd record post-1949); Little Swift Apus affinis (two records: Sardinia 2017; Sicily 2019; 3rd-4th records); Great Shearwater Ardenna gravis (2nd record); Brown Booby Sula leucogaster (Latium 2019; Tuscany 2019; Liguria 2019; 5th-7th records); American Golden Plover Pluvialis dominica (Tuscany 2019; 2nd record); Greater Sand Plover Charadrius leschenaultii (Latium 2016; 7th record);‘Russian Mew Gull’ Larus canus heinei (Lombardy 2019; first record for this sub-species in Italy); Rüppel’s Vulture Gyps ruepellii (Sicily, 2019; first record); Red-eyed Vireo Vireo olivaceus (Sicily, 2019; first record); Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus (Friuli Venezia Giulia, 2019; 2nd record); Isabelline Shrike Lanius isabellinus (Apulia, 2019; 9th record); Steppe Grey Shrike Lanius excubitor pallidirostris (two records: Sardinia 2018; Apulia 2019; 6th-7th records); ‘Desert Grey Shrike’ Lanius excubitor elegans/algeriensis (three records: Sicily 2017; 8th 10th records); Brown-necked Raven Corvus ruficollis (Sicily 2019; 2nd record); Olivaceous Warbler Iduna pallida cf. elaeica (Latium 2019; 8th record); Isabelline Warbler Iduna opaca (Latium 2016; 7th record); Paddyfield Warbler Acrocephalus Agricola (two records: Latium 2018, 2019; 27th-28th record). Brichetti & Fracasso (2020) list 28 records, but only 7 have been assessed by COI, in part due to the fact that the previous numerical threshold used by COI meant that some of these records would not have been submitted; Eastern Bonelli’s Warbler Phylloscopus orientalis (Lombardy 2019; 5th record); Iberian Chiffchaff Phylloscopus ibericus (Sicily 2019; 5th record); Ehrenberg’s Redstart Phoenicurus phoenicurus samamisicus (Latium 2019; first record for this subspecies in Italy); ‘Caspian Stonechat’ Saxicola torquatus hemprichii (Sicily 2019; 4th record); Black-throated Accentor Prunella atrogularis (Ligury 2019; 2nd record); Blyth’s Pipit Anthus godlewskii (Latium 2019, 3rd record). The addition of Rüppel’s Vulture and Red-eyed Vireo brings the Italian list to 550 accepted species. Rejected records (COI List 5A, 5B) were: Iberian Chiffchaff Phylloscopus ibericus (two records, both Latium 2016); ‘Sykes’s Yellow Wagtail’ Motacilla flava bema (two records: Tuscany 1989; Calabria 2019); Eastern Orphean Warbler Sylvia crassirostris (Tuscany, 2019). Two records are still pending and are not included here.