Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001 18:07:02 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Screech-Owl morphs in Maryland MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MDOsprey, As most of you know Eastern Screech-Owls are commonly found in two color morphs, red and gray. These morphs are genetically determined, not age dependent (as in _phases_, such as the white phase of Little Blue Heron) and a single nest of young can include gray and red individuals. A few guides (including the Golden Guide by Robbins, Brunn, Zim & Singer as well as the most recent Sibley Guide) also show the brown morph which is relatively much rarer. I have recently encountered a few brown morphs on the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland and this has sparked some curiosity about the frequency of this morph in Maryland and beyond. RED MORPHS My personal notes are of little help to me in trying to sort out the relative frequency of the two color morphs in Maryland. My head spins in trying to remember all the screech-owls I've seen over the past 13 years but I know that the red morph is far and away the most common in the state, in my experience. All birds I have seen around my house in Annapolis have been red, as have others I have seen in Worcester, Dorchester, Harford, Prince George's, Howard, Caroline, Somerset, and several other counties. GRAY MORPHS I can only recall seeing one gray morph ever in Maryland: one in a nest box in the backyard of Lynn Davidson and Hal Wierenga. Interestingly, I have seen three screech-owls just south of the Maryland line at Chincoteague all of which have been gray (I saw two there Sunday roosting in Fox Squirrel boxes). BROWN MORPHS I saw my first live brown morph last night at South Point, Worcester County, on a quick owling jaunt, and it was the only screech-owl I have seen in the immediate Ocean City area. Back on 20 Dec 2000 Matt Hafner and I found a dead screech-owl on US-13 about 2 mi north of Rte. 413. Interestingly, I had found a dead brown morph in the EXACT location in November 1999. Finally, Michael O'Brien and Louise Zemaitis found a dead screech-owl near Stockton, Worcester County, on last year's Chincoteague CBC and it too was a brown morph. SUMMARY Several sources point out the general trends with red morphs vs. gray morphs, that reds predominate in the south while grays predominate in the north and Great Plains. The recent (1998) Bull's Birds of New York gives relative ratios which are something like 80% red for Long Island, 40% red downstate, and 15% red upstate. That source also mentions 4% "intermediate" which I assume are the brown morph birds. In a quick check of other sources I can find little other information on the brown morphs. Several years ago the Maryland Yellowthroat published a request for information on screech-owl morphs, but I never heard if any discoveries were made. I would be curious now for Marylanders to share which screech-owl morphs they have seen in the state and ESPECIALLY if anyone has seen brown morphs in the state. Good birding, Marshall Iliff Ocean City, MD miliff@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================