Re: Rising's and Beadle's Sparrow book. I've heard the taxonomy and
descriptions are good.. The Breeding Bird Survey maps are fine; they are
derived directly from the BBS data. However, the authors' distribution
maps, based partly on the BBS data, are poor. The authors do not appear to
recognize the relationship between topography and the BBS data. For
example, Lincoln's Sparrow breeds primarily in the mountains in the Western
US, as you can see from the BBS data. But the distribution map shows them
essentially absent from the Cascades in Washington as breeders, but present
through most of the Columbia Basin. The Grasshopper Sparrow is shown
breeding through eastern WA, but also through most of the Cascades and SW
Washington. Etc. They authors apparently used a coarse, connect-the-dots
method to make their distribution maps, which can only partly be excused by
map scale.

Kelly Cassidy
Seattle
lostriver at seanet.com