A BIRD BY ANY OTHER NAME

Did you ever think how birds got their names? Some of them are holdovers from the U.K., but others got their names in America back in the days when a day of birding meant just that; you spent the day afield before bird guides and binoculars were useful. Any bird seen was shot and not with a camera. Shotguns loaded with very fine shot (bird shot) were used to bag the unknown. After a day afield, the birders gathered around a table and passed the birds around noting such characteristics as type of bill, colors, wing bars, etc. After naming as many as they could, the skins with feathers were preserved and used for later study and comparison; the rest were cooked up for all to savor, e.g. four and twenty blackbirds all baked in a pie sort of thing.

Observing the birds at or in hand so to speak enabled the birders to see characteristics not easily observed in the filed. Ever wonder how the Red-Bellied Woodpecker (above left) got its name? The slight rosy blush to the feathers on the abdomen would fit this name, but it is hardly a field characteristic. What about the Ring-necked Duck? Same thing; a duck hunter could see this thin light-colored band around the duck's neck, but this is hardly visible to the observer of living birds on the wing. There is a distinctive and easily seen ring around the bill of this species, (see left) however, and wonders why they were not called Ring-billed Ducks instead; it would make more sense. I defy anyone to explain to me how the name Purple Sandpiper is relevant to that species of shorebird. Speaking of Sandpipers, neither Western nor Semi-palmated have any field relevance today.

And don't get me started on Warblers! Nashville, Connecticut, Kentucky, Orange-crowned, Tennessee are just a few approved warbler names that have no field relevance to the birder trying to make sense of this complicated group.

Two closely-related species of woodpeckers possess names that are difficult to fathom even amongst seasoned birders, the Downy and the Hairy. What do these names refer to? Again, the names are based on characteristics that can only be seen when the birds are passed around the table at the end of a day's birding. The terms refer to the quality of the feathers around the beak of the bill; they are much finer in the Downy compared to the coarser ones of the Hairy (left), characteristics not seen in the field even with binoculars.l

I like the Little Blue Heron, so named because of its size relationship to the Great Blue Heron. Beginners, not knowing this, are puzzled when they discover that the color of the immature, or "little", member of this species is white! So why not Little White Heron? I was once asked why Little Blue Herons are white when they are young and I answered, "for the same reason that blackeberries are red when they are green." The neophyte stomped off in a huff.

From time those in charge of standardizing bird names suggest that American species with European counterparts retain the names in common use in England. I see several problems with this. Fir example, although I think the Brit name for what we call a Common Loon, Diver, makes more sense, I doubt that the latter will ever take over in the US of A. For one thing, Loon is so well entrenched in American bird lore, e.g., "Crazy as a Loon". "Crazy as a Diver" just doesn't cut it! Similarly, I don't think we should adopt the Brit name for some of their hawks; they call them buzzards. We have spent too many years getting American rustics to quit shooting "buzzards", a term embedded in pioneer lore for any rapacious bird that carries off lambs and babies. When the term "buzzard" is used in American, it is usually misapplied to vultures.

But where I think the biggest stumbling block in America would be encountered in adopting British terms would be as applied to the Family, Paridae. I don't think the term, Carolina Tit, will catch on here, at least for our friendly little winter bird!