Re: [cobirds] Re: Changing Common Names of birds; example, Steller’s Jay

And yet the Scrub Jay is now two Jays; one named for a state, the other named after naturalist Samuel Washington Woodhouse.  

They really need to address issues such as the Orange-crowned Warbler. Now that's a stupid name!

And while I'm on my "mini-rant", if Chickadees are named for their vocals, how about renaming Killdeer. It doesn't sound like kill deer to me. And surely we can rename Virginia Rail something like "Kiddick"!

Susan Rosine

Brighton

On Wed, Apr 21, 2021, 9:11 AM Timothy Barksdale <timothy.barksdale@gmail.com> wrote:

Gentle Birders,

Along this line of thinking is the former McCown's Longspur.... now saddled with an abomination of a name. When I moved to Montana over 20 years ago, I found colonies of this species nesting on the tops of several buttes near my home. The extreme shortgrass was like an extensive putting green, of very high diversity. The occasional Horned Lark or Long-billed Curlew would appear in these locations but other wise, the aforementioned Longspur dominated.

The courtship flight is so utterly adorable- calling while fluttering to the earth, tail spread so wide it is easily spotted at a distance. The huge white panels with the narrow, dark and inverted T is so diagnostic and easily used to identify this species.

I propose that the assigned genus remain the same so the nerd-ornitholigists obsessed with following archaic protocols have their "win". But along with many other things, our past time continues to a lot of stupid things which hurt out growth and thwart more widespread adoption. Not naming birds better is one stupidity which follows this trend.

Bay-winged, Crescent-chested, or the White tailed- Grey, or even Fluttering Longspur... anything is better than Thick-billed. Sorry nomenclature committee that is just a boneheaded name.

Very sincerely,

Timothy Barksdale

Choteau, MT

On Monday, April 19, 2021 at 3:56:31 PM UTC-5 van....@gmail.com wrote:

I can't think of anything better than listing a Kwish-Kwishee Jay on my eBirds tally. 

Van Rudd

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 18, 2021, at 15:43, Emil Yappert <eaya...@gmail.com> wrote:

+1

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 16, 2021, at 7:27 AM, Nathan Pieplow <npie...@gmail.com> wrote:



Why should Steller get a jay named after him when he spent only a few hours with the species and learned virtually nothing about it? He just happened to be the first European person to shoot one.

"The Makahs tell a story about how the bird we know as the Steller's Jay - the bird the Makahs call Kwish-kwishee - got its crest. The mink, Kwahtie, tried to shoot his mother, the jay, with an arrow but missed. Her crest is ruffled to this day."

https://www.birdnote.org/listen/shows/how-stellers-jay-got-its-crest

Doesn't the name "Kwish-kwishee" ring with more romance than "Steller's Jay"?

Nathan Pieplow

Boulder

On Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 4:09 PM Ira Sanders <zroadr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bob

Maybe it will turn out that Steller  was a Confederate general and they will change the name to Mountain Jay

Ira Sanders 

On Thu, Apr 15, 2021, 12:30 PM Robert Righter <rori...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Peter the Great,Tsar of all of Russia, invited Georg W. Steller, a German scientist to come to Russia and help explore and catalogue it's natural history. In 1741 Steller joined the Vitus Bering Expedition in sailing east to discover what was out there. After several weeks   they bumped into new land now known as Alaska. Steller discovered a jay, now known as Steller's Jay. The expedition sailed west exploring the Aleutians. Out of many of Steller's new discoveries was a new eagle, now known as Steller's Sea Eagle.

Doesn't the eponymic name Steller's Jay evoke more romance, interest, and wonder than if it was just called, for convenience, say "Mountain" Jay?

Bob Righter

Denver, CO  

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