[Birdtalk] Salt Lake Birders newsletter, endemic birds

[Steve Carr]

To all BirdTalk Subscribers-

A big gracias to Mark Stackhouse for updating the US endemics and others.

By way of correction, however, the errors that Mark points to (mostly errors of omission) are not due to Kris's excellent article regarding bird facts that she has come up with.  The omissions are from the editor of Bird Tracks, Steve Carr, in the follow-up article in the same issue, called "Puzzle Page".  I used a slightly older edition of Clements, which undoubtedly doesn't contain the most recent splits and endemic material.

I also didn't mean to slight Mexico's high number of endemics.  I mentioned in the article most of the countries in the world that have more than 80 endemics, but omitted by oversight Mexico.  My Clements reference shows 88 endemic species, which apparently is quite a bit shy of the 99+ that Mark mentions.  I apologize to Mexico, Mark, and others for not being more complete and accurate.  The article about endemics in the newsletter wasn't meant to be all-inclusive of endemics, but mostly to show countries that had a lot of endemics, and other, even very large, countries that have no endemic species.

--Steve Carr
Editor, Salt Lake Birders


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

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