I think the idea is to give birds names which help us think of the birds rather than giving them names of people which can get the birds tangled in human affairs. The question becomes what attributes of the bird are unique, helpful, and concise enough to be a useful name for a species.
For example, the first time I encountered a LeConte’s Sparrow, I had never heard of LeConte, nor the bird which was named after him. In fact, I knew very little about sparrows. It was late December 1974, and I was a high schooler on a Christmas Bird Count near Ocean City, Maryland, hours away from my home, on a several-day youth birding field trip through a nature center. The bird flushed from a dry weedy field where I was walking with my birding partner that day, another teenager named Paul Burdick. It perched atop a stalk several yards away and sat there while we stared perplexed through binoculars then got out our field guides. My Peterson Eastern US guide showed 14 tiny profiles of stripy-breasted sparrows on one page and 16 tiny profiles of plainer breasted sparrows on the next. They were hard for me to distinguish, and names like Lincoln’s, Henslow’s, Baird’s, LeConte’s, Nelson’s, and Harris’s gave no clues about habitat or field marks but instead mixed me up further. So I had never studied those pages, and in this crucial moment my eyes glazed over and my mind went blank. I looked over Paul’s shoulder at his open Golden Guide to Birds of North America. It had a 2-page spread of larger bust portraits, which was better, of 12 stripy-breasted sparrows opposite 20 plain-breasted sparrows, but including 3 additional people-names. Nine pages followed with larger portraits facing descriptions and maps. Again, this was better, but it took awhile to rule out enough to arrive at the most likely page (which depicted nothing familiar to me). Our bird had a distinctly yellow face and a dark cap. I pointed to the picture at the top. “It’s that one with the white line in the middle of the crown.“ Amazingly, the bird was still atop the weed for us to double-check and agree: LeConte’s Sparrow. The map was so small and vague that we couldn’t tell that Maryland was a bit outside its range. At the compilation that evening our bird was not on the list, but at the conclusion the compiler, Chandler Robbins, primary author of the Golden Guide, asked if there were any additional species. Paul and I raised our hands. “LeConte’s Sparrow”. The crowded room was quiet. There were no dismissive comments. The compiler handed each of us a pen and a piece of blank paper and asked us to describe and draw our observations. Sparrows are so small and complicated and stripy, and I had never tried to draw one (as I had some larger birds) nor considered the various feather tracts and what to call them. The bird had been alone, so size was hard to say, although it was small. I had never compared the length or shape of sparrows’ tails. My description was basically “a sparrow with no wing bars, that was yellow especially on the face, and that had a dark crown with a narrow white stripe down the middle.” We told the compiler where the field was, and it turns out the habitat was appropriate. Although our observation was not immediately added to the count, our descriptions prompted a return expedition a week later from Washington, DC, and I was invited as was another teenager, Peter Pyle, a budding bander (who later wrote the banders’ Identification Guide to North American Passerines.) There were 2 or 3 carloads of us. We set up mist nets in front of a hedge at one end of the field, then most of us circled around to the far end, spread out, and slowly walked toward the nets, driving the birds ahead of us. Peter was among a few who stayed near the nets. As the birds arrived he saw the little yellowish one approaching, but it flew between a pole and the adjacent net to settle on the ground just beyond. Peter clapped a hand down over it and caught the first Maryland record of LeConte’s Sparrow. Several people took photographs. A couple feathers were plucked, I think to add to the Smithsonian collections, then I was very relieved that the bird was released rather than turned entirely into a museum specimen. Someone went to a pay phone to make a collect phone call from “Lee Conte” as a coded message that our ID was good. Paul and I could not have identified the bird if it had not stayed perched long enough for us to flip through the field guides. Our process might have been a lot faster if the bird was named “Yellow-faced Sparrow,” so that’s my suggestion. - - Dave Nutter > On Nov 26, 2023, at 9:37 AM, Donna Lee Scott <d...@cornell.edu> wrote: > > Horrors. No bird deserves a name like that! > > Donna Scott > Kendal at Ithaca-377 > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Nov 26, 2023, at 8:58 AM, billebersbach <billebersb...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I think they should change the name of the Wilson Snipe to the Trump Snipe. >> >> >> >> Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone >> >> >> -------- Original message -------- >> From: Dave Nutter <nutter.d...@me.com> >> Date: 11/26/23 8:34 AM (GMT-05:00) >> To: CayugaBirds-L b <cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu> >> Subject: [cayugabirds-l] Involving the public to rename birds >> >> What would be better names for birds? The American Ornithologist Society >> says the public will be involved. It’s going to be interesting. What are >> your suggestions? >> >> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/bird-names-racism-audobon-satire/?wpisrc=nl_ideas >> >> - - Dave Nutter >> -- >> Cayugabirds-L List Info: >> Welcome and Basics >> Rules and Information >> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave >> Archives: >> The Mail Archive >> Surfbirds >> ABA >> Please submit your observations to eBird! >> -- >> -- >> Cayugabirds-L List Info: >> Welcome and Basics >> Rules and Information >> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave >> Archives: >> The Mail Archive >> Surfbirds >> ABA >> Please submit your observations to eBird! >> -- -- (copy & paste any URL below, then modify any text "_DOT_" to a period ".") 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