The Fraser River delta flatlands extend down to Bellingham (ignore the international boundary). Whatever crow species breeds in the Vancouver - Lower Mainland area would logically be the same species found breeding down to Bellingham on the U.S. side. As for a life list, well, I'm just not competitive anyway.

Phil Hotlen
Bellingham, WA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Purcell" <kevinpurcell at pobox.com>
To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Cc: "Kevin Purcell" <kevinpurcell at pobox.com>
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 3:09:07 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Northwestern Crows - hints for the perplexed birder

This is the short follow up (the justifications are in the previous long email) for those birder who just that didn't want to read that long email.

Given the recent mtDNA and vocalization evidence that suggests

1. There are three crow species endemic to US & Canada (AKA North America excluding Mexico): American Crow, Northwestern Crow and the Fish Crow.

2. The Northwestern Crow might be better called the "Alaskan Crow".

3. The crows living around Salish Sea (i.e. in the Georgia Basin and the Puget Trough and the Olympic Peninsula) are most likely hybrid Northwestern x American crows and the show a gradient in characteristics (voice, size, etc) from south to north.

then birders should

1. not believe the range maps for the Northwestern Crow published in (pretty) all guides.

2. go to SE Alaska of you want to tick the Northwestern Crow (and have that tick stand for a long time as more DNA evidence becomes available and the AOU rearranges their lists especially if you don't live in the Pacific Northwest).

One of the issues with the distribution of the Northwestern Crow is people get hung up on political boundaries that don't make much sense to the crows. Ignore the US Canada border and focus on the bigger landforms in the Pacific Northwest. For this reason a map of the Salish Sea or the Georgia Basin/Puget Sound are more helpful. Note the watersheds in these maps are not accurate (e.g. they exclude a big inland chunk of the Frasier River watershed) but they are useful for focusing on the connectivity of land and water.

http://staff.wwu.edu/stefan/SalishSea.htm
http://www.pyr.ec.gc.ca/airshed/map.htm
--
Kevin Purcell (Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA)
kevinpurcell at pobox.com
http://kevinpurcell.posterous.com
http://twitter.com/kevinpurcell

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