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Bird names - yet again! (1 Viewer)

birdman

Орнитол&
I do get vexed over the most pointless things sometimes.

I know I do – but that's the kind of guy I am.

Anyone who has read my threads in the past may have gathered that I have this fixation about names – and Bird Names are no exception.

A particular kind of Bird's Name that keeps me awake at nights, is the "Blogg's Bird" variety.

I expect what has occurred is that (almost invariably) Mr. "Victorian Ornithologist" has gone a-traipsing around the colonies, pulling this birdie and that birdie out of the sky by one method or another – and has stumbled across yet another new species, which he has them named after himself, or perhaps his sponsor or benefactor.

I don't object to Scientific names of the type Birdicus bloggsi, and I am sure there are a few similar common names that are less obvious (although the only one I know of is Gouldian Finch), but the Blogg's Bird type just strike me as crass lack of imagination! (Or maybe a guarantee of future funding!)

I suppose I should be grateful that this generally happened 100+ years ago, and not today, otherwise we would doubtless have Ronald McStint, Kentucky Fried Bowerbird, and, heaven forfend, Gates's Boubou (otherwise known as Windows 2000, I believe.)

However, I doubt we would have ended up with Microsoft Sunbird!

I suppose we Europeans are used to Temminck's Stint – (but what about Babbler, Courser, Lark, Seedeater, Sunbird and Tragopan) – and Cetti's Warbler rolls easily off the tongue – (although (Signor?) Cetti doesn't appear to make another appearance).

Mr. Temminck is not No. 1 in the list however. That accolade would seem to belong to a (Monsieur?) Cassin.

Cassin's Alseonax – (Cassin's WHAT?), Cassin's Auklet, Cassin's Finch. Cassin's Hawk-Eagle, Cassin's Honeyguide, Cassin's Kingbird, Cassin's Sparrow, Cassin's Spinetail and Cassin's Vireo

Apart from simply being unimaginative, the names range from the odd, for example Mrs. Moreau's Warbler (or in French, Bathmocerque de Winifred!) to the downright ungainly; Middendorff's Grasshopper-Warbler, or Donaldson-Smith's Sparrow-Weaver.

I don't know, maybe I should try and get some sleep tonight, and in the morning, I might have a life!
 
Blame the Victorians.

Because of them we now have Wheatears and not White Arses, much more discriptive in my view.
 
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"Named" birds seem to me to be more easily memorable than those with boring generic names. If I was to discover a new species in the backwoods of West Africa, quite apart from the vanity factor, I think that "Cawsey's Warbler" has more of a ring to it than a variation on an interminable theme like "Liberian Chiffchaff". . .

Richard
 
Thanks for the link Alcedo.atthis - I've had a quick look, and I think I'll be going back for more.

I think you've got a reasonable point, Richard Cawsey - particularly when it comes to tagging "Northern", "European", "Eurasian" etc. on to the front of bird's names. I know why they do it - it's just so boring!

(By The Way - WELCOME to BirdForum! Have a good look round, I think you'll enjoy yourself here!)

Thanks to everyone else for your responses.
 
Maybe, since, according to Sibley, each species in the world has an unique identification number, we should forget all about names and all the arguments they seem to cause, and just refer to birds by their reference numbers. Anyone got 300.0.3 breeding on their local patch this year ?

Tony
 
Cassin was a busy man, but don't forget Steller (Jay and Sea Eagle) and Townsend (Warbler and Solitare) -- they have birds named for them, too!

Makes you wonder why Audubon doesn't have a few more birds carrying his name -- and even the Audubon Warbler is not a commonly used name any longer.
 
For those of you interested in "Blogg's" bird etc... you only have to wait until August - when Helm will publish a book entitled "Whose Bird" giving biogs of all 1000+ guys (and a few gals) after whom birds have been named (in the vernacular)... should surface at the BBF.

bo

[I'm too embarrassed to reveal who one of the co-authors is]:loveme:
 
Of course, Beverlybaynes, there was also Steller's Sea Cow - now accepted as sadly gone form this world.

I'm pretty sure it's the same Steller, who seemed to spend a lot of time around the North Pacific.

For the record, according to my Sibley Monroe list, there are 702 Blogg's Bird species either as the common English name or an alternative name - although aguably the most famous (Spix's Macaw) seems strangely absent.

However, if there are 1000ish, I'd be interested to find out whose immortality was shortlived!
 
Fascinating discussion. I have to admit to having a bit of a weakness for the name Donaldson-Smith's Sparrow-Weaver, so evocative of the (glorious?!?!) days of empire, taking tiffin under the shade of an acacia tree. Having never visited Africa I've yet to see it.

The three birds which delighted me most in Turkey were also Blogg's birds, Krüper's Nuthatch, Rüppell's Warbler and Finsch's Wheatear so I'm definitely a Blogg's man.

I always think that it's an interesting coincidence that in many Germanic languages the name for the delightful Ross's Gull is based on "rosen" i.e. pink which looks superficially like Ross's but is not related to it. I suppose the Latin name is also referring to its pinkiness rather than the fact that it was named after Ross. Fascinating (God, it's a slow day at work today).
 
And Lewis' woodpecker and Clark's nutcracker were named after American western American explorers. Not sure about Montezuma's Quail, I guess it was after a revenge of some kind.

Van
 
Just a couple of tasters:

Arthur Donaldson-Smith (1864-1939) was a traveller and hunter. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Of American birth, he was a big-game hunter in Africa and seems to have spent a great deal of time in East Africa, He was probably in Ethiopia at the time and may have been present at Ethiopia’s victory over the Italians at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. He published Through Unknown African Countries in 1897. Sharpe described both the Nightjar and Sparrow-weaver in the same year - 1895.

Birds
Donaldson-Smith’s Nightjar Caprimulgus donaldsoni
Donaldson-Smith’s Sparrow-weaver Plocepasser donaldsoni

Steller
Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-1746) was a German naturalist and explorer in the Russian service; he studied medicine at Halle between 1731 and 1734, was a physician in the Russian Army in 1734, was an assistant at the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg in 1737 and accompanied Vitus Bering on his second Expedition (1738 to 1742) to Alaska and Kamchatka. Between 1742 and 1744 he worked in Petropavlovsk but died on his return journey from there to St Petersburg. John Latham the English naturalist, first described the Steller’s Jay in 1781 based on Steller’s detailed journals (by which time he also had a bird skin from Vancouver Island collected by Cook’s expedition). He published Journal of a Voyage with Bering 1741-1742 in 1743. Johann Gmelin (1748-1804) named the Jay in his honour in his description of 1788. Pallas first described the Eider and the Albatross in 1769 and wrote the description of the Eagle in 1811.

Birds
Steller’s Albatross Diomedea albatrus
(aka Short-tailed Albatross)
Steller’s Eider Polysticta stelleri
Steller’s Jay Cyanocitta stelleri
(aka Osgood’s Jay, Grinell’s Jay, Queen Charlotte’s Jay)
Steller’s Sea Eagle Haliaeetus pelagicus
bo
 
On the subject of Bloggs'. Who was Ruppell? As in Warbler and Griffon Vulture. I tried looking on the web and in my old Brittanica but could not find anything about him.
 
Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon Ruppell ... 1794 - 1884. German naturalist and explorer apparently, found some other namings after him including a fox and a form of octopus. A couple other references were written in German, the only words I understood were 'fauna' and 'abbysinia'.
 
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