So I’ll have to go to Idaho now?

New I and the Bird #95 at Birds O’ the Morning

A new bird species was just discovered in the United States. Shocking, right? That in a nation whose every square inch has been mapped, google earthed, and thoroughly documented, we can find a species brand new to science, a new tick for the lists of the seemingly ever increasing hobbyists who share our obsession. Well, kind of.

In a move that taxonomists have been waiting for for years, the non-migratory, genetically isolated population of Red Crossbills in the South Hills region of Idaho is, according to several western biologists, a distinct species, presumably to be called the South Hills Crossbill. The bird’s evolution occurred in conjunction with a permanent population of Lodgepole Pines with an absence of other cone predators like Red Squirrels, providing a consistent cone crop from year to year. This negates the need for wide ranging, nomadic populations of birds that characterizes other populations of Red Crossbills. These birds stay put, and have done so long enough to develop distinct vocalizations, which just to happen to be the only way to distinguish this potential new species from nomadic flocks of Red Crossbills that occasionally range into the South Hills.

And that’s where the excitement of a new North American bird species runs smack dab into the practical reality for thousands of birders. Identification of this bird is hard. So hard, it seems, that it makes Empids and hybrid gulls look like mere child’s play. The Red Crossbill complex has been the target of possible splits for a long time due to distinct, but highly nomadic and therefore difficult to follow or restrict to a home range, populations that have adapted to taking advantage of pine cones of various sizes and ages. This South Hills split may well be the first salvo in an attempt to split North American Red Crossbills into up to nine species, identified primarily by subtle difference in vocalizations and bill size.

Crossbills are just the first of what could be a revolutiony re-evaluation of our concept of species. Genetic studies have identified potential splits of similarly distinct populations in Winter Wren, Solitary Sandpiper, Warbling Vireo and Hermit Thrush among others. Which brings up the important question of how recreational birding is going to affected by these new genetic splits. If a bird species is only identifiable in the hand or after a computer analysis of its flight call, what does that mean for field birding? Is this where the hobby and the science of ornithology irreconcilably part ways?

I don’t know, but it’s worth thinking about, because the tipping point is coming right soon. I’m not going to lie, part of the appeal of birding for me is the ability to make a confident distinction between one bird and the next, even if the neat categories I want to stick nature into are in no way suited to the unclear, ever-changing, and often murky biological concept of a “species”. And the deeper we delve into this issue, the more we come to realize that nothing is black and white, only ever deepening shades of gray, the funhouse mirror that reflects on and on ad infinitum. Because when you open the box on Red Crossbills, who knows what else is going to pop out.

As an observer and a birder, the diversity of the natural world at once induces amazement and anxiety in me respectively. I can’t help it, at my birding core I’m a box-checker. It’s fascinating for scientists, but maddening to birders who just want to keep track of the birds we’ve seen without needing a MS in genetics to do so.

And I don’t know about you, but mostly I’m not keen on carrying a parabolic microphone and a wet lab in my backpack whenever I go out in the field.

Photo by Craig Benkman