Two New Birds

From Rocky Ridge, Ohio, Kenn writes: If you’ve traveled much in North America, especially in the West, your life list may soon go up by two species.

Something to sing about: we may have three meadowlark species.

The October 2008 issue of The Auk, the scientific journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU), was mailed late, and I just received my copy. But among the technical papers in this issue were two that could affect how some birds are classified. One study presented evidence that North America has three species of meadowlarks, not two. Another paper gave evidence that the Western Scrub-Jay should be split into two species.

Changes like this won’t become official until they’re voted on by the AOU’s Committee on Classification and Nomenclature (more affectionately known as the AOU Check-list Committee). This is the committee that establishes the standardized names and species limits that we see in field guides and bird checklists for North and Central America. But with the publication of these two new studies, it becomes likely that the committee will split these birds, perhaps as early as next July.

Meadowlarks in North America have long been divided into two species: the Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) in the West (naturally), and the Eastern Meadlowlark (Sturnella magna) in the East as well as in desert grasslands of the Southwest. Many experts have already pointed out that the desert-grassland "Easterns" look and sound somewhat different from those in the East. It had been suggested that they might represent a separate species. Now there’s good evidence for that: Keith Barker, Arion Vandergon, and Scott Lanyon studied mitochondrial DNA and other genetic markers for meadowlarks from all parts of their range, and found that the desert-grassland population was very distinct. Sturnella lilianae would be the scientific name of the "new" species; its English name might be Lilian’s Meadowlark, but the AOU will have to decide. Whatever it’s called, if you’ve seen "Eastern Meadowlarks" in southern Arizona or New Mexico or far western Texas, you can count them as this new species as soon as it’s officially "split."

Western Scrub-Jay: scrub that name, replace it with two others.

As recently as the 1980s, we had just one species of "Scrub Jay" in North America. Then the Florida Scrub-Jay and the Island Scrub-Jay (of Santa Cruz Island, California) were classified as separate species. Now there’s good reason to say that the remaining population, currently called Western Scrub-Jay, is really two species. Kathleen Delaney, Saba Zafar, and Robert Wayne studied the DNA of these jays and found that they divided into two groups that probably have been isolated from each other for more than 300,000 years. These authors suggest dividing Western Scrub-Jay into two species: California Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica), a more richly colored bird found from extreme southern Washington south to Baja, and Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma woodhouseii), a duller and grayer bird found from Nevada and extreme eastern California east to Texas. (Brian Small and I will be talking about this split in our "I.D. Tips" column in the March-April 2009 issue of Birder’s World.) There's a messy spot in western Nevada where the two may be interbreeding, and there's a population in southern Mexico that may be yet another separate species, Sumichrast's Scrub-Jay. But the split of the Western looks likely.

Again, neither of these splits will be official until the AOU's committee votes on them. But if you’ve seen them, you can count them as soon as the split is formalized -- so don’t pass up a chance to see birds like this and, so to speak, "put them in the bank." Or just enjoy such subtle variations, whether they count for any kind of list or not!

The new AOU Check-list supplement: more work for you speakers of Latin

A male Purple Finch pauses in mid-crunch to ask himself, "How do you pronounce Haemorhous, anyway?"

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes:  Every year now, birders in North America eagerly await the annual publication of the American Ornithologists' Union's Committee on Classification and Nomenclature - better known as the AOU Check-list Committee.  This is the committee of experts that makes the decisions about how our birds are classified, what is a full species and what is merely a subspecies, and what their official names should be.  Birders usually love it when a species is "split" (it could make our lists larger!) and hate it when two species are "lumped" (which could have the opposite effect).  And although the committee is not secretive about their deliberations, we never know for sure how things are going to turn out until the annual supplement in published, in the July issue of the AOU's journal, The Auk.

The supplement for 2012 has just appeared, and the changes this time are fairly conservative.  There's one split that increases the number of species recorded in North America north of the Mexican border, and no lumps this time.  The most notable changes are in the scientific names of several birds.  Those of us who enjoy memorizing these Latin names now will have to relearn several of them. 

First, the "split."  The little Pacific seabird called Xantus's Murrelet has been ripe for a split for quite some time: birders recognized that it had two populations with distinctly different face patterns.  Now those two will be regarded as separate species.  The one that breeds on islands off the coast of southern California and northwestern Baja, with a mostly dark face pattern, will now be called Scripps's Murrelet (Synthliboramphus scrippsi).  The one that breeds mainly on islands off of western Baja (and wanders north into California waters), with more white around the eye, will be called Guadalupe Murrelet (Synthliboramphus hypoleucus).

This split is well supported: both of these birds nest on San Benito Island off Baja without interbreeding, and they differ in face pattern, voice, and genetics.  The bad thing about the split, of course, is the loss of the name "Xantus's."  That could be a problem when we're playing word games with birds!

The other changes this time focus on changes in scientific names.  As ornithologists continue to learn more about relationships among birds, various birds are being moved from one genus to another.  Here's a brief rundown of just those name changes involving birds found north of the Mexican border.

Gray Hawk:
Buteo nitidus becomes Buteo plagiatus.
(Split from South American "Gray-lined Hawk," which keeps the name nitidus.)

Purple Gallinule:
Porphyrio martinica becomes Porphyrio martinicus.
(I know - earth-shaking, isn't it?)

Chuck-will's-widow:
Caprimulgus carolinensis becomes Antrostomus carolinensis.
Eastern Whip-poor-will:
Caprimulgus vociferus becomes Antrostomus vociferus.
Mexican Whip-poor-will:
Caprimulgus arizonae becomes Antrostomus arizonae.
(Sorry to see these taken out of the genus Caprimulgus, "milker of goats," because that was always a good name for weirding people out.  Incidentally, Eastern and Mexican whip-poor-wills were just split a couple of years ago.)

Calliope Hummingbird:
Stellula calliope becomes Selasphorus calliope.
(It always seemed as if it belonged with the Rufous types, and now it's official.)

Sage Sparrow:
Amphispiza belli becomes Artemisiospiza belli.
(Had been placed in the same genus with Black-throated Sparrow for a long time, but its different behavior, including its tail-bobbing and its habit of running on the ground with its tail raised, had suggested that it might not be a close relative.)

Purple Finch:
Carpodacus purpureus becomes Haemorhous purpureus.
Cassin's Finch:
Carpodacus cassinii becomes Haemorhous cassinii.
House Finch:
Carpodacus mexicanus becomes Haemorhous mexicanus.
(The latest information suggests that these birds are not closely related to the rosefinches, genus Carpodacus, of the Old World. The Common Rosefinch, which strays to Alaska, is still in its old genus.)

There are other changes that will affect your list if you bird south of the Mexican border, including changes in names of a number of wrens, an official split for the Galapagos Shearwater, and other alterations.  For the full text of the latest AOU supplement, here's a link:


One final note:  as Roger Troutman pointed out to me in an email, what could be considered the most significant change in the supplement is a change in the sequence.  Two major groups of birds - falcons and parrots - are being uprooted from their current position in the checklist, and moved to a completely different spot.  Falcons have been placed right after the typical hawks in the checklist sequence, and just before the cranes.  Parrots have been placed a little later in the list, after the doves but before the cuckoos, and still well before the owls, hummingbirds, swifts, and woodpeckers, all of which come before the huge group of songbirds.  Well - that's about to change.  Falcons and parrots are going to be placed after the woodpeckers, and just before the songbirds.

Say what?  Falcons not considered relatives of hawks?  Parrots considered to be practically songbirds?  This is going to call for a major shift in our thinking!  It also calls into question the practice of some field guides in slavishly following the official checklist order, rather than placing similar birds close together in the book.  I think I'll write something about that in a separate post.