Here I take a brief flight into the rarefied air breathed only by demi-gods, semi-devils and birding royalty.
I am a curious but under-informed watcher from the bleachers in the parlor game of Taxonomy of the Mexican Duck, presently a subspecies of Mallard or as they say in the U. K. ... malLARD. So I tried to educate myself about this teapot-worthy tempest. The first reference I found seemed to me to be a readable summary of the pros and cons of splitting Mexican Duck from Mallard. (Actually this would be a "re-split" as in the past they had been considered two separate species. Way before that they were lumped with Pintails, Black Ducks, etc. by indigenous people as "good eatin' ducks," and thus split from the other category "don't try 'em" ducks like Mergansers and cormorants. Here is a link to the one page summary I found, which itself has links to more detailed analyses. http://10000birds.com/aou-to-leave-mexican-duck-in-limbo.htm I am confident that there are many more sites worth visiting for those of you who might not follow college basketball. Your faithful correspondent, Joe Roller, Denver -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
