Tweets,

Good question about just where the line is between Sooty and Dusky Grouse in
Washington. the map in the Barrowclough et al. article that Mike Patterson
posted indicates that the boundary is along the Okanogan River valley, which
makes a certain amount of biogeographic sense. However, their pie charts of
gene flow suggests quite a strong influence from east to west into the
northern Cascades in Okanogan County. We'll all have to look more closely at
our Blue Grouse. In Jewett et al. three subspecies are mapped. I presume
that more-or-less "fuliginosus" and "sierrae" subspecies are included in the
Sooty Grouse species while "pallidus" is in the Dusky Grouse species.
Intergrades or "hybrids" are perhaps frequent west of the Okanogan River
into the Cascades.

Gene Hunn
18476 47th Pl. NE
Lake Forest Park, WA
enhunn323 at comcast.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Bartels" <mattxyz at earthlink.net>
To: "Tweeters email list" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 9:22 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Other AOU changes besides Blue Grouse


> Hi all -
> Thanks to Ryan's post, I just lost some time perusing the latest AOU
> decisionmaking about the List.
> Here are a couple more changes, for those who enjoy such tidbits - This is
> all just my understanding based on a brief reading, so be sure to check
> out the actual report if you want actual details....
>
> Basically, the Blue Grouse split is the news as far as species goes, but
> lots of other changes are included.
>
> In several places, the order of the list has been reorganized.
> *Within shorebirds, several genera are moved into Tringa, with a resulting
> shuffling of the order of the shorebird listings.
> *Jaegers & Skuas are moved out of Laridae and into their own family, just
> before Alcids on the list.
> *Lots of shifting & genus renaming within the Terns [in general, Sterna
> gets split up into many old genera names]
> *I think our cuckoos get swapped in their ordering on the list, too
>
> *Finally, we can now look forward to non-countable records of African
> Collared-Dove instead of Ringed Turtle-Dove [I bet Ned didn't realize he
> was reporting an African Collared-Dove at Marymoor last week!]
>
> What's a person who tries to keep an orderly list to do? I think I'll
> leave these shuffles for the fall round of the WA Birder checklist, since
> the Summer checklist is ready to be distributed.... Beyond that, soon the
> new books will be re-arranged.....
>
> Best,
>
> Matt Bartels
> Seattle, WA
>
> PS - If anyone has the urge to dismiss all this info as just a 'listers'
> game, I encourage you to take a look at the reports to see some of the
> interesting references to the research that has informed all these 'minor'
> shifts....
>
>>Looks like Washington gains a species through a split. Blue Grouse has
>>been split into Sooty Grouse - Dendragapus fuliginosus, and Dusky
>>Grouse - Dendragapus obscurus.
>>
>>Sooty Grouse would be the Coastal to the Cascades species, where the Dusky
>>Grouse would be SE Washington, ie Blue Mts, and I believe North Central-NE
>>part of the state..
>>
>>Check out the following link for more information. Sibley has both
>>illustrated in his field guide as separate races of Blue Grouse.
>>
>>http://www.aou.org/checklist/Suppl47.pdf
>>
>>Ryan Shaw
>>Lakewood WA
>>rtshaw80 at hotmail.com
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