Mike Smith wrote: "Seems to me Easterns
evolved to live in open areas where deciduous trees were dominant (the
East), and Westerns evolved to live in open areas where conifers are
dominant (the West)."

I agree with your statement about Easterns but not about Westerns, which
are/were probably associated with grassland and semidesert, possibly
nesting at the edge of riparian situations. I never think of the species
especially associated with conifers or even with woodland in the Northwest,
but it is common in oak savanna farther south. Westerns are not at all
typical of ponderosa pine forests in the Northwest, the conifer habitat I
would expect them in, and of course most other conifer forests in the
Northwest didn't really include "open areas" before logging.

I don't know the status of WEKI in the extensive pinyon/juniper woodland of
the Great Basin, but when I was in southwestern Texas they were in farmland
with scattered trees and at the edge of oak woodland, not in the open
juniper of the Edwards Plateau.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416