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Dark-eyed junco taxonomy (1 Viewer)

Digitalbcon

Well-known member
I am wondering if anyone has any definitive information on the taxonomy of the Junco...specifically the Dark-eyed Junco. In one resource I use there is only one species (Junco hyemalis). Yet on the other hand I have come across 5 separate classifications of Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) with 6 sub-species (Junco hyemalis caniceps, Junco hyemalis mearnsil, Junco hyemalis dorsalis, Junco hyemalis, (Oregon, Slate-colored) Junco hyemalis aikeni. There seems to be quite a lot of debate. I've heard that they have all been lumped together as one species because of interbreeding. I Others consider them separately. Is there a definite taxonomy on Junco hyemalis?
Thank you
 
Junco hyemalis Dark-eyed Junco is treated as a single species by AOU, BLI, Dickinson 2003 (H&M3) and Cornell/Clements.
But IOC splits J insularis Guadalupe Junco (monotypic), following Howell & Webb 1995.

The following groups and subgroups are sometimes recognised:
  • hyemalis - Slate-colored Junco (incl carolinensis)
  • cismontanus - Cassiar Junco
  • aikeni - White-winged Junco
  • oreganus - Oregon Junco (incl shufeldti, montanus, thurberi, pinosus, pontilis)
  • townsendi - Townsend's Junco
  • mearnsi - Pink-sided Junco
  • insularis - Guadalupe Junco
  • caniceps - Gray-headed Junco (incl 'mutabilis')
  • dorsalis - Red-backed Junco
AOU recognised J townsendi before 1910, J mearnsi before 1957 (when lumped with J oreganus), and J aikeni, J oreganus, J insularis & J caniceps (incl dorsalis) before 1983 (when all were finally lumped with J hyemalis).

Richard
 
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Junco hyemalis Dark-eyed Junco is treated as a single species by AOU, BLI, Dickinson 2003 (H&M3) and Cornell/Clements.
But IOC splits J insularis Guadalupe Junco (monotypic), following Howell & Webb 1995.

The following groups and subgroups are sometimes recognised:
  • hyemalis - Slate-colored Junco (incl carolinensis)
  • cismontanus - Cassiar Junco
  • aikeni - White-winged Junco
  • oreganus - Oregon Junco (incl shufeldti, montanus, thurberi, pinosus, pontilis)
  • townsendi - Townsend's Junco
  • mearnsi - Pink-sided Junco
  • insularis - Guadalupe Junco
  • caniceps - Gray-headed Junco (incl 'mutabilis')
  • dorsalis - Red-backed Junco
AOU recognised J townsendi before 1910, J mearnsi before 1957 (when lumped with J oreganus), and J aikeni, J oreganus, J insularis & J caniceps (incl dorsalis) before 1983 (when all were finally lumped with J hyemalis).

Richard
Thank you very much for your informative reply!! This is all very helpful and I learned a lot here!! Thanks for taking the time to reply!!
 
Of the Oregon group, shufeldti (coastal Washington/Oregon/B.C. breeders) and montanus (interior B.C./Montana breeders) seem to make up the bulk of the records that blow into the eastern U.S/Canada. I've long wondered what plumage differences the "ideal" of these taxa show. Is there a difference in back color? Or anything aside from measuring primaries and bill length?

If anyone can enlighten me, please do so.
 
Richard, thanks for these great links. The discussion on oceanwanderers will keep me busy for hours.

After a brief skim, I noticed quite a few questions about how common cismontanus is in the eastern U.S. Here in Indiana, my yard is filthy with Juncos every winter, and some days I can have up to 30% Cassiars, with the rest being hyemalis. However, 15-25% may be more the norm, and some days I don't get any. Most folks don't pay much attention to them, except when the females are mistaken for Oregon Juncos (of which, I've only had one, ever).

Incidentally, I've heard through the grapevine that somebody is researching/proposing a split between the "gray-headed" and "black-headed" juncos. However, thus far I have not found anything to back this up, other than rumors. But please keep your eyes open, and if you find anything... post it in here!
 
Especially relevant (for me right now)

Juncos are currently heading north and so the last few days, and so good flocks have been on campus the last two days. The most common junco here is the Oregon, but I have detected good Slate-colored, Pink-sided, and Gray-headed in the flocks here. As well as a lot of "scuzzy" or females birds that I have no real clue what they are, although I tend to assume they are female Oregons and perhaps Cassiars.

Something not yet brought up, but, based on today at least, there also appears to be a real size difference between Gray-headed and Oregon, and the Gray-headed I saw today was much larger than most of the junco flock it was foraging in.
 
Correction....apparently Alvaro does discuss the size difference between the gray-hooded and other forms in the junco id link posted above.
 
I would really like to read online Alden Miller’s Speciation of the Avian genus of Junco. If anyone can send a link, I would appreciate it. According to some, Alden is the man about juncos:

http://www.birdfellow.com/journal/2...k_eyed_junco_x_white_throated_sparrow_hybrids .

http://hamiltonbiological.com/publi..._2005_Pink-sided_Gray-headed Juncos_WB 36.pdf .
Alden Miller did not mention J. cismontanus in Analysis of some hybrid populations of juncos. (1939)

http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Condor/files/issues/v041n05/p0211-p0214.pdf .

But he did put cismontanus as a subspecies in 1944 in The Distribution of the Birds of California.
I want to see Speciation of the Avian genus of Junco, because Dwight could not have been more clear that he was not using cismontanus as a name for a species or subspecies just as a convenient name for a hybrid combination, but he then went on to say ornithologists should not use cismontanus but the regular form of hybrids ie. J. h. oreganus x J. h. hyemalis. Art. 17.2 says that availability is not affected if it was known to be a hybrid taxon. But what about the intent of the original describer? Hybrid specimens are excluded from the Code but not hybrid taxa??? (Art. 1.3.1) Dwight did not intend to name a subspecies or a species. Here is the quote from Dwight.

Another important question which arises is how shall hybrids be named, if at all? As indicated when discussing hyemalis, the meeting of this species and oregonus gives us two types of hybrids and the meeting of mearnsi and oregonus gives a third. The third was described long ago as a new species, " Junco montanus" (Ridgway, 1898, Auk, XV, October, p. 321), but it mav be considered as either mearnsi darkened with the oregonus strain, or oregonus grayed with the mearnsi strain, as you please. In the same
way, east of the Rocky Mountains we have a hyemalis darkened or blackened by the oregonus strain that, for convenience, might be called " cismontanus," while chiefly west of them we find an oregonus with the gray back of hyemalis that might be called "transmontanus." If these names could be restricted to definite geographical areas there would be some grounds for admitting the existence of three races but, as a matter of fact, breeding birds bearing these characters turn up at many localities. Birds of the "montanus" type occur far north in the Mackenzie Valley and west to the Frazar Valley; those of the "cismontanus" type occasionally appear as far east as Quebec; and those of the "transmontanus" type reach the Cascade Mountains, in Washington and Oregon, especially at the higher elevations which seem to have a "graying" influence. It will be observed, however, that these three types of plumage are not merelv variations in color from mearnsi, hyemalis, or oregonus, but blends of their color characters. The birds are intermediates or intergrades between dissimilar extremes -extremes that are well deserving of specific rank, because their color characters are intrinsic or qualitative. Instead of naming the hybrids, it is probably simpler to follow the old-fashioned method of using an X to indicate them. If a specimen, is nearest to hyemalis we would write Junco hyemnalis .X oregonus, or if to oregonus, the name should be written Junco oregonus X hyemalis, etc. The brown of the back of oregonus is evidently sensitive to climatic influences, but it persists in some birds of the Rocky Mountains that breed with those of the "transmontanus" type. This fact alone provides a good reason, on the one hand, for considering couesi as a race of oregonus and, on the other, for considering "transmontanus" as the result of hybridization between hyemalis and oregonus. The line of cleavage between the species and their differentiation may, perhaps, stand in direct relation to the ice sheet of the last glacial period rather than to the Rocky Mountains themselves which, after all, form today a very weak barrier to the distribution of these hardy Sparrows.

http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/bitstream/2246/1909/1/B038a09.pdf .


Swarth concluded cismontanus was J. h. connectens, Coues.

http://books.google.com/books?id=vWssAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false .


This is also the source of the English name of Cassiar Junco.

Looking at the Richmond card at Zoonomen for cismontanus Dwight never listed a type or type area (because he never wanted cismontanus to be a valid name) But Alden Miller did nominate a lectotype in Speciation a 1905 junco collected by Allan Brooks in British Columbia. If J. h. cismontanus is valid, Dwight cannot be the author the author must be Miller.
 
Perhaps inspired by the above thread, the Colorado bird listserve has also had an interesting thread on White-winged Juncos
 
Looking at a blog post about the Cassiar junco it provided me with a clue about Alden Miller’s use of J. h. cismontanus.
http://nwbackyardbirder.blogspot.com/2011/04/not-slate-colored-junco-cassiar-junco.html .
The blog said the name of these birds was J. h. henshawi.
http://www.zoonomen.net/cit/RI/SP/Ixoc/ixoc00159a.jpg .
Looking at restricted parts of google books “Subspecies J. h. cismontanus renamed J. h. henshawi by Phillips (1961), who felt type,…” And “new name for J.h. cismontanus on grounds Dwight gave incorrect breeding range” I do not think this is right. It was Alden Miller who picked a junco out of Dwight’s collection and set the breeding area.
http://www.zoonomen.net/cit/RI/SP/Ixoc/ixoc00155a.jpg .

Phillips, published this in Spanish in 1962, Anal. Inst. Biol. Mexico, 32(1961).
Here is a google translation of part of it:
So I propose henshawi Junco hyemalis. nom. nov. Junco hyemalis connectens (not Coues) Swarth, Univ Cal Publ. Zo. 24:243. 1922.Hither hyemalis Junco (Junco not "Hither" Dwight) AH Miller. idem44:343. 402.

Okay, now I feel better.

I am not sure but henshawi may be named after:
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v049n04/p0399-p0427.pdf .
 
Especially relevant (for me right now)

Juncos are currently heading north and so the last few days, and so good flocks have been on campus the last two days. The most common junco here is the Oregon, but I have detected good Slate-colored, Pink-sided, and Gray-headed in the flocks here. As well as a lot of "scuzzy" or females birds that I have no real clue what they are, although I tend to assume they are female Oregons and perhaps Cassiars.

Something not yet brought up, but, based on today at least, there also appears to be a real size difference between Gray-headed and Oregon, and the Gray-headed I saw today was much larger than most of the junco flock it was foraging in.
I agree with this. I have seen Gray-Headed in the mountains of San Diego County and they do appear a bit larger than the Oregon Juncos.
 
Guadalupe Junco

Aleixandre, Hernández Montoya & Milá 2013. Speciation on oceanic islands: Rapid adaptive divergence vs. cryptic speciation in a Guadalupe Island songbird (Aves: Junco). PLoS ONE 8(5): e63242. [article] [pdf]

Guadalupe Junco Junco (hyemalis) insularis is recognised as a distinct species by Monroe & Sibley 1993, Howell & Webb 1995 and IOC; but not by AOU, BirdLife, H&M3, Clements or HBW.

Rising 2011 (HBW 16).

[See also: Yellow-eyed Junco.]
 
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