Bird subspecies

Cackling-ish Geese

Cackling Goose is a rare fall migrant through Massachusetts and I usually see a couple of them each fall among the hundreds of Canada Geese around Concord. I look forward to the challenge of sorting through the flocks and picking these birds out, and once a candidate is located the identification has usually been straightforward –

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Peter Pyle on Sage Sparrows

The most significant change for North American birders in the 2013 AOU Checklist supplement is the split of Sage Sparrow into two species: Sagebrush Sparrow and Bell’s Sparrow. In this arrangement Bell’s Sparrow includes the distinctively dark coastal California subspecies belli, as well as the much less distinctive interior California subspecies canescens. Sagebrush Sparrow is

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Distinguishing Eurasian and American Common Merganser

The Eurasian subspecies group of Common Merganser, known by the English name Goosander, has occurred numerous times in the Aleutian Islands of western Alaska, but has never been identified farther east in North America. The American subspecies has some potential to wander to Eurasia, but has never been recorded there. I’ve never seen any in-depth

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