dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) (09/14/90)
A couple of weeks ago, I posted the following question about US endemics: >How many species of birds have ONLY >been observed in the 48 'contiguous' states plus Alaska? Can you >name them? Even one accidental occurrence in Canada or in Mexico would >disqualify a candidate. The undisputed (I think!) US endemics are: Yellow-billed Magpie Lesser Prairie Chicken Red-cockaded Woodpecker The two I am not sure about are: Boat-tailed Grackle Fish Crow Both of these latter 2 species are listed in Godfrey's "Birds of Canada", but: Boat-tailed Grackle is based on 2 Nova Scotia sight records, from 1968 and 1969, before the split of Great-tailed. Great-tailed is much more prone to wander and has been documented in both Nova Scotia and Ontario in the last decade, so in my opinion Boat-tailed Grackle probably is a fourth US endemic; There are several records of Fish Crow from both Ontario and Nova Scotia, but no specimens. Still, they have been heard, so this seems to negate the otherwise-US-endemic corvid. =============================================================================== Steve Willner (willner%cfa183@endor.harvard.edu) got two of the three: "Beats me. I get yellow billed magpie, ... Correct!! ... cape sable seaside sparrow for sure. Dusky seaside sparrow would have qualified but is extinct." The Seaside Sparrows were all "lumped" (officially declared to be conspecific) in 1973. So, they are not endemic species. If we allow endemic subspecies, I guess there are quite a few. "Two more guesses are lesser prarie chicken ... Correct!! ... and perhaps wild turkey, though I would have expected a Mexican sighting of the latter." Both Mexico and Canada were within the historic range of Wild Turkey, and the species has been successfully re-intruduced into Ontario. =============================================================================== Andrew Taylor <andrewt@cs.su.oz.au> got one of the definite endemics and one of the 'possible' ones: "I'd nominate Fish Crow, Yellow-Billed Magpie and Carolina Chickadee. Brown-Headed Nuthatch and Seaside Sparrow are near misses. But... a Carolina Chickadee was identified in the hand (mist-netted) at Long Point, Ontario; and there a few other 'sight/sound' records Brown-headed Nuthatch breeds in the Bahamas, but otherwise has not occurred outside the US. There are quite a few fall vagrant records of Seaside Sparrow in Atlantic Canada. Fish Crow discussed above.
sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee) (09/14/90)
In article <36065@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) writes:
=A couple of weeks ago, I posted the following question about US endemics:
=
=>How many species of birds have ONLY
=>been observed in the 48 'contiguous' states plus Alaska? Can you
=>name them? Even one accidental occurrence in Canada or in Mexico would
=>disqualify a candidate.
Some of you may have been wondering why I didn't answer but I was on
vacation last week ; in stead of doing trivia quizzes, I was chasing
Blue-footed Booby (successfully, I may say). So I'll have to restrict
myself to some minor nitpicking in David's otherwise excellent summary.
=The undisputed (I think!) US endemics are:
=
=Yellow-billed Magpie
... NOTE : ONLY species which is endemic to ONE STATE
=Lesser Prairie Chicken
TX Panhandle and adjoining areas in NM, CO, KS, OK
=Red-cockaded Woodpecker
Widespread in Southeast.
and
Greater Prairie-Chicken. I understand it is extirpated from its former
range in Canada, but I may be wrong.
=The two I am not sure about are:
=
=Boat-tailed Grackle
=Fish Crow
=
=Both of these latter 2 species are listed in Godfrey's "Birds of Canada", but:
=
=Boat-tailed Grackle is based on 2 Nova Scotia sight records, from 1968 and
=1969, before the split of Great-tailed. Great-tailed is much more prone
=to wander and has been documented in both Nova Scotia and Ontario in the
=last decade, so in my opinion Boat-tailed Grackle probably is a fourth
=US endemic;
Very good detective work! I hadn't thought of that one.
=There are several records of Fish Crow from both Ontario and Nova Scotia, but
=no specimens. Still, they have been heard, so this seems to negate the
=otherwise-US-endemic corvid.
=
MY list of species that are only disqualified because of accidental sightings
in Canada runs :
Fish Crow
Bachman's Sparrow (accidental Ontario)
Seaside Sparrow (accidental NB, NS)
Boat-tailed Grackle (accidental NS - but see above)
and
McKay's Bunting - breeds on islands in Bering Sea. There are no records
from Russian islands, though that may be due to lack of observers.
Winters in Alaska with stragglers reported in BC, WA, and OR. So that
makes it a near-endemic to Alaska.
I missed Carolina Chickadee. Ignoring the conditions of the trivia quiz,
I would prefer to call a species endemic if its *normal* range is entirely
within the U.S.
Daan Sandee sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 (904) 644-7045dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) (09/14/90)
In article <683@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> sandee@sun16.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee) writes: [some material about US mainland endemics deleted] >and > Greater Prairie-Chicken. I understand it is extirpated from its former > range in Canada, but I may be wrong. > Steve Willner (willner%cfa183@das.harvard.edu) in an email note today, added: > OK, I think I've got the third one: California Condor. Though I would > have expected past records from Mexico, it's an endemic now. Well, California Condor is pretty-much endemic to the San Diego zoo now, :-) but there are Mexican records within the last hundred years or so. But I'm not sure what one does with historical range contractions. As of a couple of years ago, there had not been a Bachman's Sparrow record outside the US in almost 20 years-- shall we call it an endemic? There were lots of spring overshoot records at Point Pelee and elsewhere in Canada in the 60s, but the decline of Ohio populations has apparently cut off that supply. The last Bachman's Sparrow record for Canada may pre-date the last Greater Prairie Chicken record. >I missed Carolina Chickadee. Ignoring the conditions of the trivia quiz, >I would prefer to call a species endemic if its *normal* range is entirely >within the U.S. That is very reasonable, but not the usual definition of 'endemic', I think. David Mark dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu