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Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 21st, 2013, 6:56 am
by chrish
OK, since the favorite birds post drew some talk, what about your favorite bird names (common or scientific).

It's a tough call for me, but I would have to include

Resplendant Quetzal (resplendant is such a great descriptor)

but you have to tip your hat to those who name hummers (http://www.worldofhummingbirds.com/typescatalog.php):
Bronze-tailed Plumeleteer
Glistening Sunangel
Hyacinth Visorbearer

For scientific names, I always liked
Upupa epops
and for the length, the desert soundtrack of the American West, Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus

So, what are your favorite names?

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 21st, 2013, 8:16 am
by Andy Avram
Off-hand I can't think of any common names I am particularly partial too, but some of the scientific names I have always liked are:
For comedic value - Turdus migratorius - American Robin
Just because I like the sound of it - Melospiza melodia - Song Sparrow

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 21st, 2013, 9:07 am
by monklet
Hummer names are among the best indeed :thumb: But my all time favorite, which has unfortunately been deemed politicallly incorrect, is "Old Squaw", now "Long-tailed Duck" ....about as poetic as a motel ashtray :x

Another that I like, for no particular reason, which has been deprecated is "Cardinal Grosbeak" ...now just "Northern Cardinal" :|

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 21st, 2013, 5:08 pm
by Hans Breuer (twoton)
I'm a man of simple tastes...I like "Great Tit" (Parus major).
monklet wrote:...about as poetic as a motel ashtray
Bukowski would beg to disagree. If motel ashtrays could talk!

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 21st, 2013, 5:56 pm
by Reptiluvr
Andean Cock-of-the-Rock is by far my favorite bird name. It's name matches it's equally unusual look.
Scientific name: I've recently noticed how funny Platalea ajaja is for Roseate Spoonbill.

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 21st, 2013, 6:34 pm
by monklet
Hans Breuer (twoton) wrote:
monklet wrote:...about as poetic as a motel ashtray
Bukowski would beg to disagree. If motel ashtrays could talk!
:lol: ...good point :thumb:

edit: Did Bukowski actually write something like that? If so, I wonder if I picked it up second hand. An old school bartender I worked with (talking 30 years ago), referred to some motor-mouth customer as something like "as interesting as an ashtray".

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 21st, 2013, 9:41 pm
by nightdriver
I've always been fond of Troglodytes troglodytes. I don't know why. I don't know why.

And Sayornis saya just seems to roll off the tounge....

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 22nd, 2013, 10:45 am
by JAMAUGHN
For some unknown reason, Spinus pinus always makes me smile. Birds can rest assured, though, that as ridiculous as their names can be, they will never outmatch for sheer awfulness the common name for Orobanche uniflora.

Monklet, I've read a fair bit of Bukowski, and don't recall that particular construction. It does sound like him, though, and by most accounts, he was a bit of an ashtray himself.

JimM

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 24th, 2013, 8:30 am
by gbin
I've always been especially fond of tinamous, because of the word "tinamou" as much as their lovely, haunting calls.

Gerry

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 25th, 2013, 6:37 am
by AsydaBass
Favorite common name is undoubtedly the Bananaquit. I even have a little jingle that I made up using their name and I hum it to myself every time that I see one.
As for scientific names, it's an amphibians that wins it for me: Leptodactylus pentadactylus. It's just too fun to say.

-Don
www.RainforestDon.com

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 25th, 2013, 6:51 am
by chrish
You guys bring up some excellent contenders.

The genus Turdus is full of winners. Names like Turdus pallidus and Turdus unicolor sound like they come from an old latin medical dictionary. Is Turdus serranus the condition you get after eating Serrano chiles? And Turdus fumigatus....really?

And the Paridae have some great candidates as well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paridae), but I've always been partial to Penduline Tit. It doesn't mean what it sounds like, but it still creates an image in the mind.

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 25th, 2013, 5:20 pm
by Hans Breuer (twoton)
Penduline Tit
Must....get...picture...out...of...mind...

BTW, there's an entire website dedicated to this art form: http://www.curioustaxonomy.net/

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: February 25th, 2013, 11:19 pm
by Rags
Penduline Tit
Nice, but I'm more of a tit-babbler man. Surely the Fluffy-backed Tit-babbler has got to be up there?


My favourite scientific name comes from the best ever table football game that had me addicted when I was a youngster.
It was sometime before I worked out why the boxes all had a picture of a bird's head on them - "Subbuteo."

Re: Favorite Bird Name(s)

Posted: March 19th, 2013, 2:58 pm
by Matt Buckingham
You gotta like funky bird names. What about the Blue-capped Cordon-bleu?