[Birdtalk] Salt Lake Birders newsletter, endemic birds

[Mark Stackhouse]

I just received my Salt Lake Birders newsletter and wish to 
congratulate the editor Steve Carr on a job well done, and all of those 
who wrote such interesting articles - it's a pleasure to read.

I especially enjoyed reading Kris Purdy's work, and am glad she shares 
it in the newsletter, because I  don't get the Ogden paper, and so 
don't have the opportunity to see it very often. Being a bit of a 
numbers geek, I was especially interested in a little piece she wrote 
on endemic birds of the world, and which countries had the most and the 
least endemics. I agree with most of her assessment, and have only two 
comments.

The list she made of 11 United States endemics all look good to me, and 
I agree that McKay's Bunting probably occurs on the Asian side of the 
Bering Strait. However, I think Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow belongs 
on the list as well, bringing the U.S. total to an even dozen. Although 
recognized by the A.O.U., I don't know if Clements includes the split 
in the sharp-tailed sparrows. I don't think that the Saltmarsh 
Sharp-tailed Sparrow gets to Canada (anyone know for sure?), and the 
few sharp-tailed sparrow records for extreme northeast Mexico, and a 
sketchy record for Baja, apparently represent Nelson's Sharp-tailed 
Sparrow.

I was most puzzled by the lack of mention of Mexico in the list of 
countries with a high number of endemics. Kris lists eight countries 
(counting New Guinea as one country) that have over 80 endemics, and 
says that all of the rest have less than 70 endemics. However, by my 
calculations, Mexico should occupy sixth place on the list. By the 
strictest definition of endemic species (A.O.U. recognized full 
species, no records or only a few clearly accidental occurrences 
outside of the country), I count at least 99 endemic species for 
Mexico, out of a total of about 1090 bird species for the country. 
Steve Howell, author of the most definitive field guide for Mexican 
birds, proposes another 9 species that have not yet been recognized by 
the A.O.U. that would also be endemic to Mexico. Many of his proposed 
splits have already been made by the A.O.U., and some of these 9 forms 
are certain to be made full species in the future (such as Cape Pygmy- 
Owl) as more research is done. There are another 4 species that are 
endemic breeders that stray out of the country only during the 
non-breeding season, such as Aztec Thrush and Sinaloa Martin. At least 
three species are essentially endemic in that they occur only 
intermittently outside of Mexico - Eared Quetzal (seen some years in SE 
Arizona), Black-capped Gnatcatcher (also seen some years in SE Arizona) 
and Tamaulipas Crow (apparently no longer seen regularly in 
Brownsville, TX since the closure of the dump there). So depending upon 
how strictly you define endemic, Mexico has at least 99 and as many as 
116 endemics.

If you include those species that occur only in Mexico and adjacent 
Guatemala and Belize, you can add about another 20 "regional" endemics.

Although a very few of Mexico's endemics occur only on island 
possessions of Mexico, the vast majority are on the mainland, making 
Mexico the endemic-rich region most easily accessible from the U.S. 
 From my home in San Blas, you can find about 25 endemics, include the 
mountains above Mazatlan, about 4 hours away, and you can find 30. A 
trip to Oaxaca can produce as many as 60 endemics. I only have a few 
Mexican endemics left to find, but with nearly 1100 species of birds, 
birding Mexico is always a pleasure.

Buena suerte!

Mark Stackhouse
mark at westwings.com
801-487-9453 (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)
011-52-323-285-1243 (San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico)