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Worlds Funniest Bird Name? (1 Viewer)

Some Spanish names also take the biscuit:

Ruiseñor (Common Nightingale)......Ruiseñor Bastardo (cough!cough!..poor Cetti's warbler!)
Polla de agua (Moorhen)...Polla can also refer to a part of the male anatomy (Water *****)

Tapaculos (American Bird) Tapa:from the verb "tapar", to cover or cover up something. "Culo": Backside, rear end. Surprisingly Tapaculos are very small birds.
 
Larry Lade said:
Quite a few people over here think Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is a rather humorous name for a bird.

That or the Black-bellied Whistling-Duck are the bird names you hear when an American TV show makes fun of birders.
 
I think that the name Caracara is funny. Some of them are called in Argentina 'Matamico'. 'Mata' means 'to kill' and 'mico' means 'small ape'. The funny thing is that no apes are found in the area where you could find this 'Matamico' in Argentina. The mentioned species are the Mountain Caracara, White-throated Caracara and the Striated Caracara.
 
Actually, who the hell named many of thses birds what were they on!

Bufflehead, Dickcissel, Tickell's thrush, any hemipode, babblers, bulbuls, grey hypocolius, yellowhammer, and many of the hummers e.g. green-breasted mango

Oh and Northern Breadless Tyrannulet
 
Macaroni and Jackass Penguins.
Hemispungus' always sounded strange to me too, particularly Oleaginous and Superciliaried.
 
Illiadopsis, Babax, Leothrix, Phainopepla, Hypocolius, Guillemot...

There's loads.

I personally like vthe descirptive ones: Foliage-gleaner, Streamcreeper, Leaf-tosser etc!

great therad btw
 
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Jackass Penguin

Jacamar said:
Macaroni and Jackass Penguins.
Hemispungus' always sounded strange to me too, particularly Oleaginous and Superciliaried.

Weren't Jackass Penguins so called because of their braying calls?
 
Mike Feely said:
Illiadopsis, Babax, Leothrix, Phainopepla, Hypocolius, Guillemot...

There's loads.

I personally like vthe descirptive ones: Foliage-gleaner, Streamcreeper, Leaf-tosser etc!

great therad btw

... and isn't the name guillemot from the French for "William"?
 
Because of the jokes played on young first time campers by taking them "snipe hunting" in the middle of the night, most think that they don't exist. When you tell a nonbirder that you just saw a snipe, you will get a funny look and maybe a laugh.
 
Edward said:
Another favourite is Spangled Drongo. Say it with a good strong Australian accent and it makes a great insult.

Stuart, I seem to remember you also had a particular affection for the Wongai Ningaui and the Ningbing False Antechinus. We'll have to go on a combined grasswren/ningaui road trip one day.


Edward, I agree with you about the Spangled Drongo, in fact, I was going to mention it if you hadn't. But...are you sure somebody with 'a good strong Australian accent' hasn't been pulling your leg? The false antechinus and wongai ningaui are both pouched mammals, or marsupials, not birds.

Oh, and...if you really want to hear something funny, just get somebody from a country other than this one to attempt to speak with 'a good strong Australian accent'. 3:)
 
ESTEBANNIC said:
Some Spanish names also take the biscuit:

Tapaculos (American Bird) Tapa:from the verb "tapar", to cover or cover up something. "Culo": Backside, rear end. Surprisingly Tapaculos are very small birds.
Ha! In Italian (well, Italo-Veneto in the North-east) 'tapar' means to 'stick a cork in something' or 'block a hole' and 'culo' means the same as it does in Spanish. :'D
 
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On a Jamaica Bay bird walk in June, the newbie birders could justt not get their tongues around the name of the vagrant we were watching; "Frivolous Wittling-duck", "Ferruginous Waddling-duck". Great find, but greater names!

Abbreviations always get me wierd looks from non-birders. "O look, a sharpie!" (Everyone starts looking for a dropped marker as the accipiter rockets away).

Once, at my old school, I found a dead bird outside with my class. And naturally, everyone wants to know what it is (I was and am the bird man in all of my schools) And if there was a bird name that you could recite that would make you look like more of a nerd then you are, it's this. "It's a yellow-bellied sapsucker!"

Ok, funny bird names:
Violet-crowned woodnymph
Kookaburra (I love that name)
Pigeon Guillemot
Ouzel (awesome name)
Oldsquaw (I'm sorry, vintage stuff is great!)
Southern Bentbill (What does that look like?)
White-fronted Falconet (so small, so cute, and "falconet" sounds great)
Pacific Baza
 
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