[Birdtalk] The Grouse Formerly Known as Blue

[Kristin Purdy]

Last week I visited Powder Mountain and saw a goodly number of Dendragapus obscurus, a.k.a. the Dusky Grouse. Until a month ago, the common name of this bird was Blue Grouse and our checklists and field guides reflect that name. I've had several inquiries about the true identity of the grouse I saw at Powder. 

The answer? The AOU has been up to its old lumping and splitting tricks. The AOU recently published the latest supplement to the current checklist. The supplement includes all the changes to bird names as driven by evidence such as mitochondrial DNA studies, behavior, habitat, and voice differences, etc. The Blue Grouse was split into two species, the Dusky, our interior west form; and the Sooty, the Pacific coast form. Prior to the 1940s, the Blue Grouse was considered two species--the Dusky and the Sooty. 

Thanks to friends and the Colorado Birds list serv to alerting me to the name change. 

You can find more information about this split and the other changes by calling up this link:

http://www.aou.org/checklist/Suppl47.pdf

You'll find the paragraph about the grouse on the 4th page in the .pdf file which is page 929 of The Auk article. 

If you find the transition to the new-old name difficult, you could always resort to calling the bird by its same old taxonomic name--Dendragapus obscurus, one of my favorites. The Sooty Grouse got the raw end of the taxonomic name game. The Sooty's taxonomic name has been changed to Dedragapus fuliginosus.  

Kris
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