Jerry Friedman Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 Española, N.M., this morning. 1. Definite Cassiar (cismontanus), right? 2. Could probably call this one a Cassiar too? 3. Cassiar? Oregon x Slate-colored intergrade (too bad eBird doesn't have that)? Just call it Oregon? Just throw it in with all the other juncoes I didn't identify subspecifically? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akiley Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 Fun stuff. First two look good for Cassiar, but who knows what Cassiar is. Second looks okay for Oregon to me, at least mostly. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akiley Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 Slate-colored x Oregon is what many people think Cassiar is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Friedman Posted November 3, 2019 Author Share Posted November 3, 2019 Thanks, akiley! I think Slate-colored x Oregon is what Cassiar is (because that's what I've been told to think), but does that mean every Slate-colored x Oregon is a Cassiar? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfinmt Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 No. 1 appears to fit the cassiar description well. No. 2 looks to have some buffiness in the flanks and black hood. I'd call that an Oregon male. No. 3 looks like an Oregon female with the grayish hood. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Friedman Posted November 3, 2019 Author Share Posted November 3, 2019 8 minutes ago, sfinmt said: No. 1 appears to fit the cassiar description well. No. 2 looks to have some buffiness in the flanks and black hood. I'd call that an Oregon male. No. 3 looks like an Oregon female with the grayish hood. Thanks, sfinmt! So your view is just a little buffiness makes it an Oregon, even if the majority of the flank color is gray? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfinmt Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 Well, given the lighting and such in photo 2, a subjective call might go either way. Looking through a couple R. Wright references; "Sparrows of N. America" p 241 indicates ..."flanks and breast sides are gray with a barely discernable overlay of pinkish". In "The Junco called Cassiar" he says a "nearly invisible tinge of gray on its brownish flank". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melierax Posted November 3, 2019 Share Posted November 3, 2019 (edited) The first two look fine for Cassiar to me (defined hoods but gray sides). The last one looks more like a female Oregon but the gray on the flanks makes me think it has some Slate-colored in there. Yes, Cassiar Juncos are Oregon x Slate-colored. Otherwise known as Dark-eyed Junco cismontanus, and that's what eBird uses (it doesn't recognize "Cassiar"). Edited November 3, 2019 by Melierax 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phalarope713 Posted November 4, 2019 Share Posted November 4, 2019 I agree with Melierax, the first two look good for Cassiar. Third is probably an Oregon, although I’m not sure. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Friedman Posted November 5, 2019 Author Share Posted November 5, 2019 (edited) On 11/3/2019 at 2:56 PM, Melierax said: The first two look fine for Cassiar to me (defined hoods but gray sides). The last one looks more like a female Oregon but the gray on the flanks makes me think it has some Slate-colored in there. Yes, Cassiar Juncos are Oregon x Slate-colored. Otherwise known as Dark-eyed Junco cismontanus, and that's what eBird uses (it doesn't recognize "Cassiar"). Thanks, Melierax and Phalarope! Yes, Cassiar are Oregon x Slate-colored, but the article by Rick Wright that sfinmt linked to says, 'It is worth remarking that the same scenario probably recurs even now, with occasional pairs of "pure" Oregon and Slate-colored Juncos producing young that potentially replicate the appearance of a true Cassiar Junco (Miller 1941 ). With that possibility in mind, it may be strictly more accurate away from the breeding grounds to speak of "apparent" Cassiar Juncos or "Cassiar-type" Juncos, though it seems likely that most such birds are in fact genuine Cassiar Juncos, members of the stabilized and geographically delimited population designated J. h. cismontanus.' Wright talks about that in more detail in his book on sparrows. Since everyone is wondering... I joined The Junco Complex group on Facebook and asked about these photos. The two responses I got agreed that the first two birds are Cassiar. One said weird intermediate birds like the third should go on eBird as cismontanus for the time being, but the other suggested that J. h. thurberi, the Oregon subspecies that breeds in most of the California mountains, can have gray flanks. So I'm going to put the third photo onto eBird under "Dark-eyed Junco" with the caption "You make the call." Also I apologize for misspelling "juncos" in the thread title. Edited November 5, 2019 by Jerry Friedman 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melierax Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 So what's a "true" Cassiar? Maybe I'm skimming the article but there definitely isnt a separate subspecies of Junco called cassiar. It's a hybrid slate colored and Oregon, unless I'm completely mistaken. Also that article is 6 years old, and scientists have been able to research birds like this much more thoroughly within these past 6 years... not saying it's necessarily wrong, but it could be misinformed. Everything I've ever read has said that Cassiar Juncos are simply hybrids. Sibley says it is a "broad intergrade population". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Friedman Posted November 6, 2019 Author Share Posted November 6, 2019 11 hours ago, Melierax said: So what's a "true" Cassiar? Maybe I'm skimming the article but there definitely isnt a separate subspecies of Junco called cassiar. It's a hybrid slate colored and Oregon, unless I'm completely mistaken. Also that article is 6 years old, and scientists have been able to research birds like this much more thoroughly within these past 6 years... not saying it's necessarily wrong, but it could be misinformed. Everything I've ever read has said that Cassiar Juncos are simply hybrids. Sibley says it is a "broad intergrade population". Rick Wright talks about that in the sparrow guide that sfinmt linked to. It's copyrighted 2019. That link is to the limited preview at Google Books, but the pages I can see are the ones where he talks about what Cassiar "is". As I understand it, one possibility is that thousands of years ago, Oregon and Slate-colored interbred in the Canadian Rockies and the hybrid "stabilized". Essentially all the males in that population are recognizable Cassiar, with black hoods and gray sides. When two birds in that population mate, their male offspring will all look like that. Those would be "true Cassiars". (Unfortunately, the females don't seem to be distinctive enough for me to talk about what they look like.) There could be other intergrades from modern matings between Oregon and Slate-colored, and some might look like "true Cassiars", even like the classic males. The other possibility is the one you're talking about, I think. The population in the Canadian Rockies is a "hybrid swarm", with all kinds of intergrades between Oregon and Slate-colored. Some, maybe many of the males have the Cassiar look, but their fathers may well not, and they don't breed true. Rick Wright, as of this year, didn't think the question was settled. But I don't know what you've read and what arguments you've seen. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melierax Posted November 6, 2019 Share Posted November 6, 2019 Oh, thanks for the info! I must have read the wrong copywrite date lol. Yeah, I've just been going by local knowledge from birders who have studied it more than I have. I'll have to look into it more thoroughly though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Friedman Posted November 6, 2019 Author Share Posted November 6, 2019 (edited) 5 hours ago, Melierax said: Oh, thanks for the info! I must have read the wrong copywrite date lol. There were two links to things by Rick Wright, one to an article from 2013 and one to a book from 2019. Sorry about the confusion. ? Edited November 6, 2019 by Jerry Friedman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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