(not an obs.) Junco sub-species range map

[Doug & Nina Harr]

If you already get the National Audubon Society's frequent online news, you may have already seen this on Monday.  But if not, I'm attaching a nice map just sent out showing regular ranges of all subspecies of Dark-eyed & Yellow-eyed Juncos in North & Central America. It may help Iowa birders figure out which variety of vagrant junco might occasionally show up at their winter feeders. Accompanying map text is pasted in below.

Doug Harr

Ogden

This map by Borja Milá of Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, one of Ellen Ketterson's collaborators, shows the various Dark-eyed and Yellow-eyed Junco color varieties across North America. Based on DNA evidence, Milá's work suggests that Dark-eyed Juncos evolved from Yellow-eyed Juncos that migrated north from Mexico into the United States and Canada in the past ~13,000 years after glaciers receded. It includes a Dark-eyed Junco variety not covered in this article: the recently described Guadalupe Junco (GUJU), which breeds only on the tiny Guadalupe Island off the coast of Baja California. (Key, counter-clockwise from top left: ORJU=Oregon; PSJU=Pink-sided; GUJU=Guadalupe; BAJU=Baird's; YEJU=Yellow-eyed; GTJU=Guatemalan Yellow-eyed; VOJU=Volcano; CHJU=Chiapas; RBJU=Red-backed; GHJU=Gray-headed; WWJU=White-winged; SCJU=Slate-colored)Photo: Borja Milá, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales  

[Eliza Willis]

Thank you for posting this map. I helped me identify the subspecies that appeared in my backyard in Iowa City this afternoon (April 4).