Mountain Chickadee (Poecile gambeli) [XC254331]
by from Gila, Grant County, New Mexico, United States (call)
Mountain Chickadee (Poecile gambeli) [XC350729]
by Paul Marvin from Bluff Lake, San Bernardino Mountains, San Bernardino, California, United States (alarm call, call)
Subspecies
Until recently present genus normally subsumed into a broad Parus, and many authors still prefer that treatment. Genus normally treated as feminine, but no evidence in original description or elsewhere justifies this, so genus is masculine by default. Has been placed in a superspecies with Mexican Chickadee (Poecile sclateri), sometimes including also Willow Tit (Poecile montanus), Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) and Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) and has also been considered possibly conspecific with White-browed Tit (Poecile superciliosus) or placed with it in a superspecies. Further research is required. Geographical variation largely clinal, and subspecies intergrade. Additional proposed subspecies are wasatchensis (described from Wasatch Mts, in Utah), synonymized with inyoensis, but sometimes included within nominate, and grinnelli (Idaho) and abbreviatus (California), both merged with baileyae. Birds in Davis Mts, in south-western Texas, have been proposed as a further subspecies on basis of small size.
The following 6 subspecies are recognised:
baileyae (Grinnell, 1908) - Pacific slope of Rocky Mtns in western Canada and western USA.
inyoensis (Grinnell, 1918) - Western USA (south-eastern Oregon and southern Idaho south to central-eastern California and north-western Arizona).
gambeli (Ridgway, 1886) - West-central USA (eastern Rockies from central Montana south to New Mexico and western Texas).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet