Aphelocoma. This
happens when we can't automatically assign an identification to one of the
output taxa.
Review identifications of Aphelocoma californica 7844
Taxonomic Split 16541
(Committed on 2016-09-05)
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split into |
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Comments
For those wondering how to actually update their records for this change, the AOU proposal provides this note:
Birds of the woodhouseii group are more grayish-blue, with less contrasting plumage, and have a thinner, straighter bill that lacks the hook of birds of the californica group (Pitelka 1951). These differences in bill shapes appear to be adaptations to food resources (Peterson 1993; Bardwell et al. 2001), as the two groups occupy different habitats (californica in oak woodland versus woodhouseii in pinyon-juniper). Furthermore, the groups are known to behave and vocalize differently (e.g., Dunn and Garrett 2001, Curry et al. 2002). Dunn and Garrett (2001) qualitatively described vocal differences between these groups – the calls within the woodhouseii group are consistently higher pitched and on average consist of two syllables compared with the harsher, lower pitched, and one-syllabled notes from coastal birds.
Frustratingly they don't provide a map, but here's one from Gowen et al. (2014) (yellow is A. californica, red is A. woodhouseii, split colors represent zones of gene flow / hybridization, other colors represent other genetic groupings, and this does not cover the whole range):
[Figure © 2014 Gowen et al. CC BY]
Thanks! (Note that all colors on the map except yellow represent birds now included in Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay. [There's a good chance that the southernmost birds - represented by green and black - could be split as Sumichrast's Scrub-Jay A. sumichrasti in the future.])
For more comprehensive maps, here's the eBird map for California Scrub-Jay, and here's the map for Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay. (And here are all the photos of California and Woodhouse's in the Macaulay Library)
So which are birds from non-penninsular Mexico?
Birds from non-peninsular Mexico are Woodhouse's (Sumichrast's is currently treated as a subspecies group within Woodhouse's, comprising subspecies sumichrasti and remota).
cool thanks
For anyone with a Sibley or National Geographic field guide (at least the most recent editions - I don't have older ones with me at the moment, or any other North American field guides), both already describe and illustrate both California and Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays (as subspecies groups of the broader Western Scrub-Jay)
Sorry about the multitude of taxon changes - things should be worked out now.