Wayne & Tweeters,

Last July in the Stehekin river valley at the northwest end of Lake Chelan I saw three separate male "Sooty" Blue Grouse hooting and displaying on the ground along a hiking trail, where my wife and I were able to walk up to within about fifteen feet.

Ed Kane
Renton, WA



"Wayne C. Weber" <contopus at telus.net> wrote: Tweeters,

I would estimate that about 90% of Okanogan County is
occupied by Dusky Grouse, and only about 10% (the western
edges) by Sooty Grouse. If Barrowclough et al. show the
dividing line between the two as following the Okanogan River,
they are just plain wrong.

In May of both this year (2006) and 2004, I spent some time birding at
Pearrygin Lake State Park, just outside Winthrop. There were several
male Dusky Grouse on territory within and close to the park. By
appearance, by the type of hoot, and by the characteristic
hooting location (on the ground, not in trees), these were
unquestionably Dusky Grouse. On page 194 of "Birds of Washington
State", Jewett et al. also describe hooting Dusky Grouse near
Winthrop, and they list this form as occurring at Mazama.

I'm not sure about the situation south of Lake Chelan, but in
Okanagan County, the Sooty Grouse spills over only a short
distance onto the east slope of the Cascades before it is replaced
by Dusky Grouse. The same situation prevails throughout BC--
Sooty Grouse are mainly on the west slope of the Cascades and Coast Range.

Ian, your Blue Grouse from Slate Peak may well have been Sooty Grouse.
However, this is practically on the boundary between Whatcom and
Okanogan Counties, where Sooty Grouse would be expected.

It will undoubtedly be necessary to look in greater detail at the
relative distribution of Sooty Grouse and Dusky Grouse in WA.
However, Barrowclough et al. are certainly not the last word on
the subject.


Wayne C. Weber
Delta, BC
contopus at telus.net



----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene and Nancy Hunn"
To: "Tweeters email list" ; "Matt Bartels"

Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 8:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Other AOU changes besides Blue Grouse


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




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