No, that's not the name of an ex-girlfriend, but it's a name that
generated some serious thinking.

Gregg Thompson sent me photos of the Red-naped Sapsucker that's been
at Juanita, and on close examination, I see it has some red on its
cheek, red covering much of the black malar stripe, and red outside
the black V on the chest. As far as I know, this indicates the bird
is a hybrid with Red-breasted Sapsucker, presumably from a population
on the east side of the Cascades where the two species hybridize
rather freely. We have quite a few of these intermediate specimens
from that region in the Slater Museum, supporting the idea of rampant
miscegenation.

So I wonder if there isn't a philosophical question here about
counting birds on one's (life, year, day, state, county, park) list
that are of hybrid blood. I don't know if the ABA has any "rules"
about this, but let's apply a bit of logic. If the bird is 90%
species A and 10% species B, shouldn't it be countable as species A?
I would say this bird is clearly more Red-naped than Red-breasted,
but of course who knows the percentage?

If it's just intermediate, in other words about 50% species A and 50%
species B, should it be countable as either species? Or should we
exercise the mouth-watering thought that it could be counted as both
species?

How about 75:25? 63:37? If I were making the rules, I would probably
say that if the bird seemed to be 75% or more species A, it could be
counted as species A.

But if there are no "rules," I guess everyone can do just as they
please!
-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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