Comments on the 2021 Checklist of Alaska Birds

ADD Hooded Crane Grus monacha, based on one collected in Sep 2020 at Delta Junction (UAM specimen). Insert following Common Crane G. grus.

ADD Pallas’s Grasshopper-Warbler Helopsaltes certhiola, based on a bird present 9–12 Sep 2019 at Gambell, St. Lawrence Island (photos AKCLC). Insert preceding Middendorff’s Grasshopper-Warbler (which now is also maintained in Helopsaltes).

ADD Song Thrush Turdus philomelos, based on a bird present 9 Oct 2020 at Utqiaġvik (photos AKCLC). Insert between Redwing T. iliacus and American Robin T. migratorius.

DELETE Northwestern Crow Corvus caurinus.

AOU/AOS Supplement 61’s (Chesser et al. 2020a:16) precipitate reclassification of the Northwestern Crow Corvus caurinus as “a geographical trend, rather than a species or subspecies”presented a nomenclatural lapsus, one in which the coastal crows from Kodiak Island to Washington State were left without a scientific name. Correcting that error, Chesser et al. (2020b)—in press in the final 2020 number of The Auk [to be renamed, after 137 years, Ornithology]now state instead that the taxon caurinus is to be maintained as a subspecies of the American Crow, C. brachyrhynchos caurinus.

Following Johnston (1961) and Mattocks et al. (1976), who a half century ago published the same conclusion to be articulated soon by Chesser et al. (2020b), the ongoing “Inventory of the species and subspecies of Alaska birds” (see Gibson and Withrow 2015) now recognizes two subspecies of the American Crow instead of two species of crows. (The second subspecies, C. b. hesperis, of interior British Columbia and points south, is known in Alaska only from Hyder.)

*Status of Lesser White-fronted Goose, with a third Alaska record, is changed to Casual.

*In the family Trochilidae, species in the genus Selasphorus are re-ordered so Calliope Hummingbird Selasphorus calliope now precedes Rufous Hummingbird S. rufus.

*The family Scolopacidae is now identified (only) as Sandpipers.

*In the family Phalacrocoracidae, species are re-ordered so Double-crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus now follows Pelagic Cormorant P. pelagicus.

*In the family Locustellidae, Lanceolated Warbler Locustella lanceolata is moved to precede River Warbler L. fluviatilis.

*In the family Turdidae, the two subspecies of the former Dusky Thrush Turdus naumanni are elevated to species status: the Dusky Thrush Turdus eunomus is casual in Alaska and the Naumann’s Thrush T. naumanni is added to the Alaska unsubstantiated list.

*Status of Lesser White-fronted Goose, with a third Alaska record, is changed to Casual.

*Status of Blue Grosbeak, with a third Alaska record, is changed to Casual.

*The Unsubstantiated List now comprises 19 species (including one species-pair) with the additions of Murphy’s Petrel Pterodroma ultima and Naumann’s Thrush Turdus naumanni.

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Chesser, R. T., Billerman, S. M., Burns, K. J., Cicero, C., Dunn, J. L., Kratter, A. W., Lovette, I. J., Mason, N. A., Rasmussen, P. C., Remsen, J. V. Jr., Stotz, D. F., and Winker, K. 2020a. Sixty-first supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s Check-list of North American Birds. The Auk: Ornithological Advances 137:1–24; doi: 10.1093/auk/ukaa030

Chesser, R. T., Billerman, S. M., Burns, K. J., Cicero, C., Dunn, J. L., Kratter, A. W., Lovett, I. J., Mason, N. A., Rasmussen, P. C., Remsen, J. V. Jr., Stotz, D. F., and Winker, K. 2020b. Addendum to the sixty-first supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s Check-list of North American Birds. Ornithology 137:XX–XX; doi: 10.1093/ornithology/ukaa074

Gibson, D. D., and Withrow, J. J. 2015. Inventory of the species and subspecies of Alaska birds, Second ed. W. Birds 46:94–185.

Johnston, D. W. 1961. The biosystematics of American Crows. Univ. Washington Press, Seattle. 119 pages.

Mattocks, P. W. Jr., Hunn, E. S., and Wahl, T. R. 1976. A Checklist of the Birds of Washington State, with recent changes annotated. W. Birds 7:1–24.