Hi Jen,
Thanks for an informative write-up!
I suppose this is a philosophical question of bird ID: When do you call a
bird a hybrid? To me, the h-word implies a relatively even mix of two
things, whether you're talking about bird species or anything else.
Your sapsucker looks like a Red-breasted with one or two very minor plumage
differences. I doubt one of its parents was a "pure" Red-naped, or even one
of its grandparents. So, I don't think it's accurate to call this bird a
hybrid - I'd say it's a Red-breasted Sapsucker that might have a couple of
extra genes, as many North American sapsuckers probably do. Red-breasted
and Red-naped Sapsuckers were considered to be the same species as
Yellow-bellied until they were split in 1983, and some populations have
significant gene flow back and forth.
Someone with a prosthetic arm is not a robot, right? So, even if a bird has
a couple of unusual characteristics, I'm fine with calling it what it
basically looks like - recognizing, of course, that species don't always
follow our rules, and that documenting these interesting birds helps us all
learn about them.
Good birding,
Noah
*Read about my record-breaking 2015 worldwide Big Year at audubon.org/noah
<http://audubon.org/noah>.*
On Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 9:55 AM, <whoffman@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi -
Nice write-up. I learned quite a bit from it. I also see a lot of
variation in Red-breasted Sapsuckers here on the coast, and assumed much of
it was related to age and sex. I saw a presentation at an ornithological
conference back in the late 1970s or early 1980s by Ned Johnson in which he
showed photos of a Red-breasted Sapsucker specimen with the head feathers
clipped to about half their length. It showed a head pattern very similar
to Red-naped Sapsucker in the feather bases, that was obscured by red tips
on all the feathers.
In my opinion, a lot of birders are too quick to call birds hybrids
because they do not appreciate the amount of variation present in "pure"
populations of the parents. I see this with gulls. A bit of dark smudging
or streaking on the head of a winter Western Gull does not automatically
make it an "Olympic" Gull, particularly if it has a very dark back.
"Olympic" Gulls also ought to show intermediate or mixed characters of
mantle color, iris color, and/or eye-ring color, and/or bill color.
Also in wigeons. "Pure" Eurasian Wigeon drakes can have some green around
and behind the eye. This is pretty regular in Asian populations, at least.
Hybrids likely will have this green, but also should also have some pinkish
color invading the flanks. We need to be careful with this, though,
because Eurasians do have pinkish flanks in eclipse plumage; and Eurasians
(at least the east Asian populations) have a delayed molt out of eclipse.
Birds may have retained eclipse flank feathers at least into December.
Wayne
------------------------------
*From: *"Jen Sanford" <jjsanford@xxxxxxxxx>
*To: *"obol" <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Cc: *josephblowers@xxxxxxxxx
*Sent: *Wednesday, March 9, 2016 8:58:44 AM
*Subject: *[obol] The continuing Sapsucker Dilemma
Hi all,
At the risk of beating a possibly dead sapsucker horse here, I wanted to
share the blog post I put together this morning about the Wasco County bird
in question:
http://www.iusedtohatebirds.com/2016/03/the-sapsucker-dilemma.html
I dug into my photos and pulled out an assortment of Red-breasted
Sapsucker images from the Portland/Multnomah area in an effort to
understand what is normal and what is not. I find so much variation that I
am only more confused. Stephen Shunk's hybrid article is very interesting
but did not sway me in either direction as to the identity of my Wasco
bird.
Maybe Sibley said it best with "Plumage variation within each of the three
closely related sapsuckers-and interbreeding where ranges overlap-produces
a small number of individuals not safely identified."
Good birding,
Jen Sanford
Portland
