Birding | Education
How To Name A Bird
A while back, I was perusing the internet, you know how one does, and I stumbled on a Twitter flame war centred on a bird. Oh yes, the birding community is nothing if not a passionate bunch. This particular stoush was focused on a little-known North American bird called McCown’s Longspur.
As you can see, it is a rather unremarkable looking bird. If I didn’t know any better, I’d probably think it was a run-of-the-mill Sparrow. To the trained eye, though, you will see they are more of a slate grey with a black bib. And if you get really close to their feet, you will see their long spurs.
But that’s neither here nor there. What was the hubbub with McCown’s Longspur? Or rather, what was the hubbub with the Thick-billed Longspur? For you see, that was the problem — there was a petition in place to have its name changed.
This Sparrow-like bird has what is known in the ornithological biz as an honorific name. That is, it is named after a person. In this case, one John P. McCown (1815–1879). Back in the good old days of the 1850s, our friend Johnny P was manifesting destiny, pushing the boundaries of the fledgling United States further westward. While out on the prairie one day he shot an innocent looking bird he’d never seen before. So, he popped it in an envelope and mailed it back east to his friend, George Lawrence, who confirmed that it was new to science. For his troubles, McCown got his name forever affixed to this little bird.
Normally, that would be the end of the story. But about ten years later the United States needed a moment or two to work out if those states were going to stay united or not. That discussion turned into the Civil War. McCown, being a proud patriot, joined the Confederate Army and eventually served as a Major General.
By now you can probably guess where this is going. McCown has (had) the distinction of being the only Confederate officer to have a bird named after him. But, what with all the recent tension in the US about honouring Confederate figures, a concerted push was being made to get that blemish off this bird. Predictably enough, there was some backlash, with people claiming it was yet another example of cancel culture and political correctness run amok.
Anyway, that got me thinking — just what is in a bird’s name? How are birds named and what do those names mean? First, you will be pleased to know that there is an official committee that takes care of these issues: the International Ornithologists’ Congress. They meet once every four years (kinda like the Olympics, only more bureaucratic) and they have the final say on what bird gets what name. Thank God a committee was created to take care of this, otherwise there would be literal chaos. People naming birds with wild abandon and flagrant disregard for common decency. They are the only thing standing between us and names like Birdie-McBirdface.
Now, I know what you’re thinking — do they have guidelines for naming birds? Do they ever! There are ten guidelines. I won’t go into them all (you can find them here), but just to give you a taste: names must be unique; and names should be as short as possible and only exceed four words (hyphenated or otherwise) in rare exceptions. My favourite is that they don’t like using the word ‘island’ as part of a name, unless it helps to avoid confusion. One example is the Inaccessible Island Rail.
Good thing they clarified that whole island thing, or right now I’d be thinking about how to gain access to this rail. It’s all thrilling stuff, I know.
Anywho, I’ve done a bit of digging and I am pleased to report that for most birds there is some logic to how they’re named. (Seems like the committee’s work is finally paying off.) For the most part, you can think of bird names as following a similar system to how our own names work (in the western tradition at least). We have a family name and a first name. Nearly all birds are the same, they have two names: a first name that generally describes some attribute they possess, and a second name which tells you what family they belong to. Let’s look at an example at random: the Crested Pigeon. From its name we should deduce that it belongs to the Pigeon family, and has a crest. And lo and behold, that is what we find.
The system works.
Now, there are exceptions to every rule. Some birds only have one name, they’re the Chers of the bird world. And just like Cher, they’re rather rare. Even birds that you think only have one name usually have two. Names that might spring to mind (for us Australians) would be the Kookaburra or the Magpie. But officially, they are the Blue-winged or Laughing Kookaburra (yes, that’s two different species), and the Australian Magpie. You’ll note in the case of the Magpie we get a geographical descriptor instead of a physical one.
But sometimes names can be misleading. Unfortunately, our Aussie Magpie doesn’t belong to the Magpie family. The Magpies that live in Europe and Asia are all Corvids, and our Magpie is a member of the family Artamidae (basically they’re a big old Butcherbird). It has this misleading name because when Europeans first arrived in Australia they thought it looked similar to the Eurasian Magpie. The word ‘magpie’ does tell us something about its physical appearance though. To be ‘pied’ means that you’re a black and white animal, which the Australian Magpie most assuredly is. The name holds true for other birds, like the Pied Butcherbird, the Pied Currawong and the Magpie-lark.
Wait a second, I was supposed t be talking about birds that only have one name. Sorry, I got distracted…
Birds that only have one name tend to be known by their original indigenous name. In Australia, we have the Emu and Galah, both indigenous names. But the same is true for all sorts of birds. You’ve got the Kea and Kakapo from New Zealand, the ‘I’iwi from Hawaii, or the Hoatzin from South America.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t birds that poo-poo the rules and you can wind up with some pretty kooky names. The Many-colored Rush Tyrant, for example, has one hell of a name. But to be fair, it does have many colours, it does live in rushes, and it is a member of the tyrant flycatcher family. Why are they called tyrants? We don’t have time to get into it, but trust me there is another really cool bird behind that story as well.
Meanwhile, the Bare-faced Go-away-bird has another great name, but again the same pattern holds. They don’t have any feathers on their face, and people are always telling them to go away. Actually, that part of their name is based on the call they make. It supposedly sounds like someone saying, ‘go away’.
Many birds have names that are onomatopoeic. The obvious family are the Cuckoos, but two of my favourites are the Killdeer and the Jacky Winter.
Probably the most egregious act of false advertising, the Killdeer is more of a plover than it is a murderer of moose; and the Jacky Winter has nothing to do with the season or anyone named Jacky for that matter.
But then sometimes things can go awry. Takes for instance, the Connecticut Warbler, which doesn’t live anywhere near Connecticut. It’s really more of a Canadian Warbler. Or the Olive Warbler, which has nothing to do with Olive (the colour or the plant) and isn’t even a Warbler, it’s actually more closely related to Finches. But then the bird world is full of example like this. Usually these issues pop up because of a misclassification at the time of discovery, and then the name just kinda sticks.
Well, if it isn’t my old friend the Orange Finch. Oh wait, sorry, the Olive Warbler.
But no review of bird names is complete without delving into the gutter. Birds certainly aren’t above having smutty names, and if we hunt around we can find plenty of tits, boobs and cocks. The Brown Booby probably tops the list of boobs. Of course, the name has nothing to do with mammaries. Rather, it is generally believed the name comes from the Spanish word ‘bobo’ meaning someone who is a fool — a reference to how easy it was for sailors to catch and eat these unsuspecting birds. Even today, if you call someone a boob, it means they’re being stupid or foolish. Ditto for the Great Tit, and all the other members of the Tit family. Their name comes from the Scandinavian word for Sparrow, ‘titlingur’. Of course, in America they’re sometimes called Cickadees, which in my opinion is even more hilarious.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. You’ve got other instant winners, like the Cock-of-Rock, the Dickcissels, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and everyone’s favourite, the Hairy Woodpecker.
Yet another bird with a misleading name. They have no hair to speak of … they do peck wood, though.
But we have gotten wayyy off track here. The point I really wanted to make was about honorific names and how they fit in with all the other silliness. I think we’ve covered off the silliness now, so let’s get back to business.
So honorific names. Nearly all of them take the form, “X’s bird-family”. For example, Bonaparte’s Gull, Lyall’s Wren, Abbott’s Booby, McCown’s Longspur, etc. As always, there are exceptions, like the Victoria Crowned Pigeon, named after Queen Victoria, but lacking the possessive.
In recent years, there has been a growing tension in the birding world as to just how appropriate honorific names are. As you can imagine, nearly all of them are named after European men. For the most part, the bird in question was already known by the local peoples before the colonising power arrived. Sometimes the bird is named after the person who found it, but sometimes they’re just named as a gesture of goodwill to some other guy. Take for example, Stresemann’s Bristlefront, named after German ornithologist superstar (yes, there are ornithological superstars) Erwin Stresemann, not because he had anything to do with it, but because the person who first described it liked Stresemann and thought he’s name should get hooked onto this bird. Sometimes, as is the case for many Birds-of-Paradise, they get named after a royal personage for no better reason than to suck up to the aristocracy. The King-of-Saxony Bird-of-Paradise, is a case in point.
So, there’s a pretty strong argument that honorific names have had their day. They don’t describe the bird in any way, so they’re not helpful for identification. Sometimes they do hint to the bird’s history in natural science, but not always. And even when they do, often it’s hard to find out exactly who the person is that got their name affixed to the bird and why.
Then of course, there are birds like McCown’s Longspur, where the person being honoured is of a dubious nature. Sadly, you don’t have to hunt for too long to find many other examples either. John Kirk Townsend, who has two birds named after him — Townsend’s Warbler and Townsend’s Solitaire — desecrated American Indian burial sites to collect their skulls. Major Charles Bendire, who served in the US army and fought many battles against the American Indians, also has a Thrasher named after him. And then there’s Rospoli’s Turaco, a bird named after a dude who either robbed or murdered most of the indigenous peoples he ran into. Thankfully he was trampled to death by an elephant, so maybe there is still some justice left in the world.
Turaco’s are amazing too, by the way. They’re the only birds that have a green pigment in their feathers. But first … you know … we got to side step the awkward person it’s named after.
I guess we can just be thankful there aren’t any birds named after Hitler. And I mean, I joke, but there is a beetle called Anophthalmus hitleri which is currently under threat of extinction because Hitler enthusiasts keep trying to collect it. What a world we live in! But birds, we’re talking about birds here.
Historically, attempts to change names have been met with stiff resistance from the official committees. A previous push to have the Inca Dove’s name changed failed. The Dove has no association with the former Inca Empire and doesn’t even live anywhere near where the Empire used to exist. The guy who named it was just straight up ignorant of the native people and figured, ‘well you’re all basically the same, near enough is good enough.’ That’s a direct quote by the way, no need to double check it.
The problem with the committee is … how should I say this…? It has conservative views. From their perspective, even though the name is inaccurate, it is in common usage, and it is the name people are familiar with, so in favour of maintaining stability and consistency they rejected the name change request. They have previously stated that their body does not exist to pass moral judgment on names, and if you make one exception then where will the line of acceptability get drawn? It’s a slippery slope, guys.
Look, when all is said and done, the birds don’t care what we call them. Gould’s Toucanet will keep doing its thing, whether this South American bird has the name of some English dude attached to it or not.
The real question, though, comes down to what we value. When we continue to have these names associated with these birds, we perpetuate the practice of honouring colonising powers in foreign lands. And that’s as a bare minimum, never mind if the person on the bird was actual trash as well. These names do nothing to help people better identify or learn about the birds, while casting a shadow that legitimises a problematic past. There is of course a place to learn about the history of natural science, but I don’t think having the name of a person on a bird even achieves that. Hell, I write about birds all the time and mostly I don’t even bother looking up who the person is.
But maybe times are shifting. The American Ornithological Society accepted the petition to have McCown’s Longspur’s name changed. Following this decision, the International Ornithological Congress agreed to also update the name. Now it is known as the Thick-billed Longspur. The history of how this bird was discovered (at least by the western world) isn’t going anywhere, but now we’re free to appreciate it on its own merits and not those of some long dead, racist dude.
Fly free my thick-billed Long-spurred friend.
If you’re interested in the subject and would like to know more about the movement to change the names of some of the more troubling offenders, then check out Bird Names for Birds and the work they do.
