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

[Robert Righter]

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  

[Ira Sanders]

Bob

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

Ira Sanders 

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[Nathan Pieplow]

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

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[dick...@hotmail.com]

Bob, all,

With apols for heading somewhat off-topic. Moderators please forgive me

 

Concerning Steller’s Jay..

 

As you may well be aware there is a wonderful book concerning Bering’s second voyage “Where the Sea Breaks its Back” by Corey Ford, pub 1966.  Most of this book’s gripping 200 or so pages are actually about Steller and his natural history discoveries, some 280 years ago, including those famously named after him such as the Jay, sea-cow and Sea-Eagle. I have read this tome several times and highly recommend it if you have any interest in either exploration, natural history, or both. The two arctic expeditions of Vitus Bering (a Dane) on behalf of the Russian monarchy during the reign of Peter the Great each started with a 6,000-mile cross-country trek from St. Petersburg to Kamchatka that makes the Lewis & Clark expedition look like a cake walk. And that was just to get to the beginning of the sea voyages. Also in the book I learned that Alaska is probably an abbreviation of Unalaska, derived from the Aleut word agunalaksh, which means “the shores where the sea breaks its back.”  Of course everyone knew that from school right? And as for the author’s own first sighting of the Aleutians, I can totally relate..

 

Declaration: No financial involvement, but proud to shout for European Naturalists!

 

Dick Filby

Carbondale CO, Norwich UK

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[Sebastian Patti]

 . . . and Steller's Eider and, sadly, Steller's Sea Cow.  He also discovered and named (I think) the now-extinct Pallas' (=Spectacled) Cormorant.  

The man led a fascinating life.   

sebasti...@hotmail.com
Sebastian T. Patti
770 S. Grand Avenue

Unit 3088

Los Angeles, CA 90017 
CELL: 773/304-7488

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From: cob...@googlegroups.com <cob...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ira Sanders <zroadr...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2021 4:09 PM

To: Robert Righter <rori...@earthlink.net>
Cc: cobirds <cob...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [cobirds] Re: Changing Common Names of birds; example, Steller’s Jay

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[Hugh Kingery]

I have another gripe with common names: I dislike ones that demean the bird: Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Flycatcher.

Would you like us to call you the Least Birder, or a Lesser Observer?

Hugh

[Willem van Vliet]

Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass) has argued insightfully for a “grammar of animacy” that challenges Western tenets of naming.  Learning the Potawatomi language that her grandfather was forbidden to speak, she finds out that the Hudson River was originally called “the river that runs both ways” (because of the tidal action).  She cites Krista Tippett: “The words we use shape how we understand ourselves, how we interpret the world, how we treat others. Words make worlds” (Becoming Wise). Indigenous languages use verbs and pronouns to name non-human animals, including birds, to describe and respect their relationships to us and the wider ecosystem, often incorporated in stories (e.g., Steller’s jays hopping up trees to see danger better). 

Willem van Vliet

Boulder

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[Ira Sanders]

I can just imagine the nick names. 

Ira Sanders 

[Woodcreeper29]

I’ve been called worse

Steve Larson 

Northglenn 

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On Apr 16, 2021, at 11:56 AM, 'Hugh Kingery' via Colorado Birds <cob...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



I have another gripe with common names: I dislike ones that demean the bird: Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Flycatcher.

Would you like us to call you the Least Birder, or a Lesser Observer?

Hugh

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[Cinnamon Bergeron]

Regarding badly named birds, why is the Mountain Plover called the Mountain Plover?  

These plovers are never in the Mountains and always on the plains.

Maybe someone has a good answer.

Cinnamon Bergeron

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[Emil Yappert]

+1

Sent from my iPad

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



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[Charlie Chase]

I suspect it was due to the fact that the type specimens that Townsend described in 1837 were from Fremont County, Wyoming.  This is a high plains county at the base of the Wind River and Absarokas Mountain Ranges.    You can still find "mountain" mountain plover's at 10000 feet in South Park and slightly lower in the San Luis Valley.

Charlie Chase

Denver

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[Van Rudd]

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

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[Timothy Barksdale]

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

[Susan Rosine]

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

[Deborah Carstensen]

Don’t forget the ringneck duck! How many times have we called it ring billed duck anyway?

Deb Carstensen, Arapahoe county 

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 21, 2021, at 12:10 PM, Susan Rosine <u5b2...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Ted Floyd]

Hey, all. 

As DWEM ornithologists go, Steller was actually a pretty righteous dude. Steller got in trouble with his patrons--in two countries!--for being overly sympathetic to indigenous peoples. 

Also, Steller is relatively well known.

But how about the person for whom the Ross's Goose was named? Thoughts on the matter here:

https://www.aba.org/how-to-know-the-birds-no-47-watching-geese-in-the-age-of-birdnamesforbirds/

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County

 

[mvjo...@gmail.com]

Really entertaining dialogue on naming birds, often named for the least conspicuous feature. I also love bird names that might be longer than the actual bird...like Northern Beardless Tyrannulet. (Curious....Is there a Tyrannult with a beard?...My mind is picturing this!!) Along with Hugh's disdain for Least (which I agree) would be the boastful and judgement laddened "Greater"....like Greater Yellowlegs. 

John Rawinski

Monte Vista, CO 

[Brian Johnson]

This has been an interesting thread. I have had an interest in the names behind the bird names. I know of two books that might be of interest for anyone.

Who's Bird: Common Bird Names and the People they commemorate by Bob Boelens and Micheal Watkins

This book covers the world and includes names up to the time of publishing, 2004, as we know things have changed since then. It is an encyclopedia so the entries are brief. Also goes over extinct bird names if it honors someone. There is also an explanation for how to name birds.

One more local in interest

Audubon to Xantus: The Lives of those Commemorated in North American Bird Names by Barabara Means

Published in 1992 so some bird names have changed, Xantus Murelet has since been split and is not longer a name for any bird (but Xantus still has a Hummingbird in Baja California) it has longer entries for the people, it however only covers birds north of the border. Their is an appendix that covers birds that are subspecies and birds that were once considered spices but are now subspecies. This author also has Biographies for Birdwatchers, which covers the Western  Paleartic  and includes overlap from the other book, such as Alexander Wilson, who was from Scotland.

Anyway, I am a librarian so I wanted to offer some books. Both are out of print however but you can get them used or from your library.

Good reading, good birding

Brian Johnson,

Englewood CO

[Willem van Vliet]

And, combining erudition with levity, from a Brit with an international perspective:  Mrs. Moreau's warbler: How birds got their names (Stephen Moss).

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Willem van Vliet--
Professor Emeritus

Fellow, Community Engagement, Design and Research Center

University of Colorado at Boulder

[DAVID A LEATHERMAN]

Brian et al,

Don't forget about Pioneer Naturalists by the great entomologist Dr. Howard Ensign Evans.  He gained fame at Harvard working along side the likes of E. O. Wilson before deciding mid-career to make a change and come West to CSU to study ground-nesting wasps and toil in a region of the country where new discoveries arose from almost every one of his field visits.  This book by Dr. Evans seeks to celebrate the efforts of obscure naturalists, lest they and their stories be forgotten over time.  Yes, many of them are European doctors and such who joined exploratory military expeditions into lands long occupied and known by Native Americans.  But as evidence Dr. Evans recognized the sovereignty of these people, many of the insects Dr. Evans himself formally described in the scientific literature as "new species" he named for Native American tribes.  One tiny wasp yours truly happened to lay eyes on and collect at Lamar Community College was given the scientific name Dipogon kiowa ("two-bearded wasp of Kiowa country") in recognition of the area's early inhabitants.  That same summer a CSU colleague discovered another little wasp in the same genus at Mesa Verde and Dr. Evans named it D. anasazi.  In defense of this name, it was constructed before anthropologists determined a better name for the cliff dwellers of that region would be "ancient Puebloans". 

I have promoted Dr. Evans' writing in previous COBIRDS posts but it bears repeating that his other books are equally good including Cache la Poudre: The Natural History of a Rocky Mountain River, The Natural History of North American Beewolves, The Pleasures of Entomology: Portraits of Insects and the People Who Study Them, Australia: A Natural History, William Morton Wheeler, Biologist, The Wasps, The Biology of Social Insects, Wasp Farm, and others.  Perhaps his most famous book, Life on a Little Known Planet has been printed in at least 26 languages.

Dave Leatherman

Fort Collins

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From: cob...@googlegroups.com <cob...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Brian Johnson <bunting...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2021 9:22 PM
To: Colorado Birds <cob...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [cobirds] Re: Changing Common Names of birds; example, Steller’s Jay

 

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