Birding parlance (1 Viewer)

Surreybirder · Apr 27, 2003

simondix said:
I like Bonxie for Great Skua.

Any Gaelic speakers on this forum?
I think that bonxie is the Gaelic name for great skua; as is trystie for black guillemot and erne for sea eagle.

On the line of bird names for humans:
You crazy coot!

Swift · Apr 27, 2003

In Lancashire rural folk refer to Starlings as Shevy's , Chaffinches are Chuffers , but by far the best term I have heard was used to refer to gulls, when asked about the mass of Herring Gull "races/splitsetc"one birder just simply said he had no interest in looking at "slurry surfers and tip scramblers!!!!"

Andrew · Apr 27, 2003

Slurry surfers, a great name!

I wish they did not clean up the sewage outlets at the coasts as they apperently brought loads of rare gulls.

peter hayes · Apr 27, 2003

Don't go down to Newquay then Andrew...........you'll be lynched by the human surfers!

Andrew · Apr 27, 2003

That is amazing, we are telepathic. I was thinking of Towan Head in Newquay. I went there last year following the instructions of a book and found they had cleaned it up so it was birdless on the day! Darn surfers, the human kind!

Katy Penland · Apr 28, 2003

Hey, Bev! Your dictionary left out "pond poodle" -- for black-neck stilts. Ostensibly for the incessant "yapping" they do whenever humans or other sources of disturbance are around.

Katy

Sal · Apr 28, 2003

We have, amongst others:

'frets' - bronze mannikins
'Piet-my-vrou' - redchested cuckoo
'butcherbird' or 'Jackie Hangman' - fiscal shrike
'bottlebird' or 'rainbird' - Burchell's coucal
'Wille' - sombre bulbul
'Toppie' - blackeyed bulbul
'Mossie' - sparrow
'Go-away bird - grey lourie
'Sakabula' - Paradise Whydah (when in plumage)
'Thickknees' - spotted dikkop
'Coly' - mousebird
Kiewietjie' - crowned plover
'Kelkiewyn' - Namaqua sandgrouse

and any small brown bird (especially the cisitcolas) are known as 'tinktinkies'.

Many of these names are based on the sound made by the bird, some on behaviour and some on appearance and actually, none of them have ever bothered me!

Edward · Apr 28, 2003

Some of the terms mentioned by Surreybirder (tystie and ernie) as possibly Gaelic are probably Old Norse, i.e. Icelandic. the modern Icelandic for Black Guillemot is "teista" and generically for eagle "örn."

Talk of Commic Terns reminds me that I saw plenty of Crekla Larks in Spain last week.

John Marshall · Apr 28, 2003

In Lincolnshire the Dunnock is always known as Cuddy

Andrew · Apr 28, 2003

Is Craven anything to do with Lincolnshire cos I have a book that says Cuddy is the word for Dunnock in an area called Craven.

Andrew · Apr 28, 2003

This thread is very interesting and I have bought an old book on this kind of thing. I will post a thread in the Books forum with possibility of a new competition.

Darrell Clegg · Apr 28, 2003

Cuddy is what we called Dunnocks when I was a lad back in West Yorks as well

Darrell Clegg · Apr 28, 2003

Following on from my earlier post about Sparrows being called Spogs where I grew up Sparrowhawks were of course called in the local dialect "spog'orks"

Michael Frankis · Apr 28, 2003

Hi Simondix,
All the pipits can be abbreviated like that . .
Mipit, Tripit, Ropit, Wapit, Tawpit, Olipit, Artypit (R-T), Dickypit (Richard's), Blypit, Peckypit (Pechora), etc

Hi Alan,
Apart from the official Sparrow, I've never heard of anything other than Spuggy/Spuggie in this area (Northumbs)

Hi Surreybirder & Kevin,
Yes, Edward is right - Tystie, Bonxie, Erne are all Old Norse Viking bird names, not Gaelic.

Michael

Alcina · Oct 6, 2004

Surreybirder said:
Any Gaelic speakers on this forum?
I think that bonxie is the Gaelic name for great skua; as is trystie for black guillemot and erne for sea eagle.

I think you are right about the last two, but a book on Shetland folklore told me once that 'bonxie' is actually a surviving word from the (now-dead) native lagauage spoken in Shetland, which I believe was called Norn, or something like that.

Elizabeth Bigg · Oct 6, 2004

Erne is often used in crosswords - Clue: Sea Eagle.

Mike Pennington · Oct 6, 2004

Alcina said:
I think you are right about the last two, but a book on Shetland folklore told me once that 'bonxie' is actually a surviving word from the (now-dead) native lagauage spoken in Shetland, which I believe was called Norn, or something like that.

All three are Shetland names NOT Gaelic.

Shetland dialect derives from a maixture of Old English, Old Scots and Norn, a form of Norwegian (no Gaelic at all).

Tystie is almost the same as thebirds name in all other Scandinavian countries.

Erne is also Scandic I think.

Bonxie though is of uncertain eymology.

jwaldo · Oct 6, 2004

%*^#ing *%^#! -any bird that disappears before I can ID it

black52bird · Oct 6, 2004

To dip out (on)

Friends,
Collins English Dictionary (complete and unabridged, 2003) says, and I quote:
dip out VERB (intr,adverb) Austral and NZ informal (often foll by 'on'): to miss out on or fail to participate in something: 'he dipped out on the examination'

I wondered what its relationship to 'dipping' to find out who would be 'it' in a children's playground game (like 'one potato, two potato...' or 'eeny, meeny,miney, mo...' etc) - because that has something to do with being 'in' or 'out'.

Interestingly the next entry after 'dip out' in the Collins is 'dipper', and our tubby friend Cinclus cinclus is only the second meaning!! Meaning 1 is 'a ladle used for dipping' .... which just goes to prove that cookery is more popular than ornithology (as anyone watching UK TV knows!!).

In my home town of Walsall (currently famous for Red Squirrels and Otters - see the thread!) the House Sparrow is a 'spadger'.

'Buzz' for Common Buzzard hasn't been mentioned, I think. The popular 1980s nod to the leaderenne turned Magpies in Maggies.... 'Jacks' for Jackdaws . Tennyson had 'hern' for Heron in 'The Brook'. 'Moorcock' for Moorhen is a fairly widespread local name in some parts of the UK. Then lots of those '-ie' endings to shorten long names: 'Gillie' for Guillemot, 'Kingie' for Kingfisher, 'Blackie' for Blackbird ....but this is a common feature of British English when name fellow humans - 'Smithie' for Smith, 'Hillie' for Hill etc.

Enough for now

Best

David

Bluetail · Oct 6, 2004

Mike Pennington said:
Bonxie though is of uncertain eymology.

Far be it for me to disagree. However, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary ventures the following:

[Norw. bunksi, f. bunke dumpy body f. ON bunki heap (cf. Norw. bunke fat woman).]

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