JLRosso at aol.com writes:
> David [Quammen] responds with good nature
> saying that indeed he had been sloppy because he forgot to mention that he
> was talking about the magpie Pica pica, the Black-billed Magpie which the
> Audubon Master Birding Series assures him is restricted to western US.
>

Of course, the Magpie _Pica pica_ is also present in Europe, North Africa (Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia) and some part (most?) of Asia.

> Well I don't have a copy of the Master Guide to birds but I doubt very much
> that it says that. I'm very surprised that David didn't check maybe a second
> source. Both my Peterson's say that Pica pica is also Eurasian in
> distribution. There is a fine volume (T & AD Poyser) that I want to purchase
> some day which discusses the Black-billed Magpie that lives in both North
> America and Europe.

> (As a side bar how many species aside from the Herring Gull, can claim
> dual citzenship, so to speak?)

Well, as it is gonna be one of my last messages on Tweeters, I'd better have it
long :-)


Apart from many introduced species (the Chukar, the Gray Partridge, the House
Sparrow, the beloved Starling here; the Pheasant here and in Europe; the Canada
Goose, the Ruddy Duck, the Bobwhite in Europe, ... and of course many more),
I guess we can categorize the "dual citizen" somewhat (note that the categories
are not exclusive):

- migratory birds breeding in the Arctic (or sub-Arctic) : loons, some
grebes (Red-necked Grebe), some swans (Tundra and the *very* similar "Bewick" Swan),
some geese (Brant), some ducks (Common Eider, Black and White-winged Scoters),
raptors (Rough-legged Hawk), shorebirds (Black-bellied Plover, phalaropes,
Dunlin, the infamous Sanderling ;-), the jaegers (dubbed "skuas" by
the Brits), terns (Arctic, Common, Roseate Terns), song birds (Northen Wheatear,
Yellow and White Wagtails, Water Pipit, Bohemian Waxwing, Common and Hoary
Redpolls, Lapland Longspur, Snow Bunting);


- resident birds of the Arctic : ptarmigans(Willow and Rock Ptarmigans), raptors
(Gyrfalcon), gulls (Glaucous, Iceland, Great Black-backed, Mew Gulls,
Black-legged Kittiwake), alcids (Razorbill, Common and Thick-billed Murres,
Dovekie, Black Guillemot, owls (Snowy, Great Grey Owl, Northern Hawk-Owl, Boreal
Owl), woodpeckers (Three-toed Woodpecker), song birds (Pine Grosbeak, Red and
White-winged Crossbills);

- northern sea birds : cormorants, gannets, ducks and geese, shorebirds, gulls,
terns, alcids.

The holartic distribution of others birds can certainly be explained by the fact
that they "used to" breed in the Arctic and then achieved more southerly expansion.
Eared Grebe, many many ducks, Northern Goshawk, Northern Harrier, Osprey (?),
Long-eared and Short-eared Owl, Horned Lark, Common Raven (?), Winter Wren (from
here to Asia and then Europe), Northern Shrike come to my mind here, though I'm
not sure that all my guesses are correct.

It certainly also explains quite well recent speciation in Gray Jay, Boreal
Chickadee, Northern Creeper, all birds related to eurasian (mostly siberian)
species.


--
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The Comet cometh, Gromit gromith.
Serge Le Huitouze Intelligent Software Group
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca School of Computing Science
tel: (604) 291-5423 Simon Fraser University
fax: (604) 291-3045 Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6 CANADA