Want to start a feed showing some strange taxon comparisons with birds. I’ll start it off and you can post your own. Add a little humor if you can.
Why is the Pacific-slope and Cordilleran Flycatcher separates species but all the Dark-eyed Juncos aren’t?
Dark-eyed Junco subspecies routinely intergrade where they meet. I believe that the argument for Pac-slope and Cordilleran Flycatchers was that they don’t show such behavior. Part of the issue is that they’re so hard to distinguish that intergrades aren’t obvious – you just about have to use DNA to find them, which is expensive.
I don’t know about weird, but one of my favorite taxa has to be Turdus migratorius, if I revert to teenage scatological humour :-)
I was hoping to keep this topic humorous and not a debate but ok, guess I failed! XD
I would have found the common names of Parus major and Dryobates villosus humous as a teen.
The Cackling Goose is a seperate species, despite being nearly identical to the Canada Goose.
Distinguishing a Taverner’s Cackling from a Lesser Canada is like asking you if you can distinguish a female Sharp-shinned Hawk from a male Cooper’s.