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Hedge Accentor! (1 Viewer)

Andrew

wibble wibble
Does anyone use the proper name for Dunnock in their lists? Seems a bit stiff upper lip to say "I saw three Hedge Accentors this morning, eh, what what!"
 
Hi Andrew,

I always use Dunnock. That other contrivance is a bit of a nonsense.

Harrison (1982, Atlas of the Birds of the Western Palaearctic) used '— Dunnock' for all of the Prunella species (Alpine Dunnock, Siberian Dunnock, Radde's Dunnock, etc.). Very sensible and I can't see why the BOU didn't follow this excellent example.

Spot the Alpine Dunnock in this list, too ;)
http://www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/bulgaria/bul1/bul-sept-01.htm

Michael
 
I call them Dunnocks, although I wouldn't want to call Accentors 'Dunnocks' even though I know they're very closely related. Somehow "Alpine Dunnock" lacks that air of exotic promise that Alpine Accentor has.
 
i seem to remember 'Someone' from Devon calling a certain bird -
'White Throated Dipper' ! , not too long ago........ ;)
Water Ousel is a far more appropriate & evocative name for The Dipper.
Fair enough if it had been a continental one.....then it could sound great !.....
hows about ...........'Black Bellied Water Ousel' :bounce:
S

PS - Your birds clearly a 'Haddock'
A freshly split hybrid-throwback with parents being Hedge Sparra & Dunnock..a new armchair tick which is also very pleasant with chips & mushies..... :eat:
S
 
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Actually it is a White-throated Dipper. I am new to proper names so I went by the Collins at first and am now referring tot he BOU list but felt it too much to call our Dunnock a Hedge Accentor.
 
The impression I get is that the majority of birders have stuck with the names that were current before the BOU got the bee in their bonnet, except that we all happily use "Northern", "Common" or whatever when clarification is desirable. There was a rather nice article in "Not BB III" (anyone remember that?) that summed up the revailing attitude pretty well.

Jason
 
Hi Jason,

I think the BOU names would have caught on a lot better, if they'd had the sense to backpedal and abandon the two or three most controvertial changes - the change to Dunnock being one of them.

The great majority of the changes were very sensible, and it was only their intransigence over keeping ALL of them, that made birders go into revolt and reject the whole lot.

Sadly, probably too late now to ever return to any level of conformity over bird names now.

Michael
 
Hi Michael

Do you think just backpedalling on two or three would have been enough? That's not my recollection. What I remember is a lot of opposition (voiced publically at the time) and the BOU ploughing on regardless. Well, not entirely regardless, since they did invite comments from inetersted parties; but they were already determined to drive though the "unique identifer" principle. I don't think I ever met one birder who thought it necessary, even the ones who appreciated the intellectual reasoning behind it.

Jason
 
I feel sorry for the BOU

they tried to bring some standardisation to British names but just got shouted down by the narrow-minded British birding community, as they do over many things come to think of it. Quite why birders should have had the power to do away with these names is beyond me. Birders can surely call birds whatever they like when talking to their mates or ticking the boxes on their lists.......and listening to popular opinion isn't always the wisest option

I try to think in latin binomials as much as possible these days as using 'English' names when abroad is a recipe for confusion. Not too many people are familiar with Dunnock, believe it or not.
 
Hi Jason,

As I remember it, there was a lot of comment when the draft list was put out, some favourable, some not; but that when they took not the blindest bit of notice of the comments submitted in response to their invitation, that's when opposition hardened significantly. People quite rightly felt their views had been ignored.

I feel sure that if they'd said "OK, thanks for the comments, we've decided on reflection not to go ahead with these few most disliked changes: .....", then the rest would have been accepted much more willingly.

Certainly true that several of the less controvertial ones have been taken up by recent field guides (Collins, Beaman & Madge, etc), but they all still have Dunnock.

Michael
 
Hi Tim,

Tim Allwood said:
I try to think in latin binomials as much as possible these days as using 'English' names when abroad is a recipe for confusion. Not too many people are familiar with Dunnock, believe it or not.
Hardly surprising, as the species (and indeed the genus) doesn't occur (except as 'mega' vagrants) in any English-speaking country outside of the British Isles!

That's why the BOU's reasons for rejecting Dunnock were so completely unreasonable (and equally, why Harrison's are perfectly sensible). Calling Prunella rubida 'Japanese Dunnock' rather than 'Japanese Accentor' isn't going to make any difference to the Japanese, since they all call it 'Kaya-Kuguri' anyway.

Michael
 
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ok so Dunnock was a bad example on a saturday night after a bottle of wine B :) (are you being pedantic again? ;) ). Think of the recent discussions re raptors etc. if we all used a different English name in each country it would soon become more tedious than it already is.

the principal holds true though - the point was standardisation of English names - a major headache. Decisions made about 'British' birds impact in other regions and any attempt to standardise names is a step forward by me. Why have several accentors but one Dunnock in the same genus?

can't we offically have Hedge Accentor and birders can call it what they like when they're out birding or on thier list/notebook at home. Why do people get so wound up by this. Is it some sort of inferiority complex? - not wanting to be told what to call birds by people who 'think they know better' than the majority of us?

Why does your average birder need to call Dunnock by its official BOU name?
And if we acceed to the wishes of birders in so-called 'lofty' matters the british list would number a few dozen more birds and splits would be made at the drop of a hat......... :h?:
 
Hi Tim,

Think of it the other way round:

Decisions made about 'British' birds impact in other regions
Yes, in many cases, - but Prunella is not one of them. There are no English speakers in the rest of the range of the genus.

There are over 50 million English speakers in the British Isles who are affected by the decision to change Dunnock to Hedge Accentor, but only a few thousand (if that) English speakers (English birders going abroad) affected by changing all the other accentor names to dunnock names.

If one is to have a single group name for all the species, making it '— Dunnock' impacts on considerably fewer people than '— Accentor'. That's why I think Harrison was right.

Michael
 
I believe in calling a spade a spade - and a shoveller a shoveller. So 'Dunnock' (from the Olde English meaning 'Small and brown', I was once told) will do it for me.
 
I'll wager someone got really hot under the collar when the Dunnock was given it's name, it's previous name may have been preferred too!
 
How about Hedge Bettie,Chanter, Chat, Creeper,Dunny,Moke,Hatcher,Hempie, all known other names for this species.

CJ
 
Well done Mike D, let's stick to the old, and best name, ie Dunnock = 'little brown job'.

And while we're at it let's do the same with the Robin and go back to his old name, ie Ruddock = 'little red job'.
As I understand it historically it's name has changed as follows: Ruddock, Redbreast, Robin Redbreast, Robin.

Ye olde Alan Hill.
 
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