counting coots

This one isn’t quite so funny, but it has a nice ring to it. Perhaps it has an internal contradiction that amuses me.

Lulu's Tody Tyrant, Poecilotriccus luluae

Either way, Lulu’s Tody-Tyrant brings up images of a little Scottish one-trick-pony and some beardy bloke from Neighbours all mixed together in a hellish concoction to rule underworld barbies with extreme prejudice. Mate. Well, to me anyway.

I’m not entirely sure which Lulu it was named after (and don’t have the Who’s Bird book to hand as I type) but that was never really the point of these frivolous entries.

As the average reader of this humble blog is unlikely to be familiar with Peruvian foothills, I’ll give you some background to the bird.

It was discovered (or perhaps more accurately separated) in 2000 by Ned K Johnson and Robert E Jones (nice work guys). The paper detailing all this was published in The Auk in 2001. The paper is freely available online, as is much of the output of this esteemed organ (google for ‘Searchable Ornithological Research Archive’ – it is a cracking resource).

This distribution map is in the paper.

Maps are cool.

Postscript. I'm led to believe that in 2008 Ned K Johnson died, and the species is subsequently assuming the name Johnson's Tody Tyrant. Which although worthy, is not amusing in the slightest.

Dear Mr Swainson,

I write to you more in sorrow than anger as it has come to my attention that when naming one of my ancestors in 1827 you were perhaps a little hasty in applying a familial monicker. This has lead to many uncomfortable moments through the family history, for which I feel I must take issue.

Although I am sure that your intentions were well meant, and I understand that English is littered with homonyms, there are words that generally bring only one image to one's mind, and your choice is one of these unfortunate instances.

Yes, I accept that the Old English origins may have allusions to the morning star (which would have been much more apposite) and it can literally mean ‘light-bearing’ (this also would have been much more preferable) but why oh why oh why did you have to name him Lucifer’s Hummingbird? Lucifer?

Could you not have forseen the damage this would do? How would you like it if you went through childhood with the nickname of 'el diablo' or 'archfiend'. Can you imagine the distress? We would have been quite happy being named like your thrush, or your toucan or the warbler or the bloody hawk, but no! You named us after the Devil. It's not like we look like members of the Satanic horde do we, we're bloody Hummingbirds! We are pretty and sparkly and quite un-satan like.

Yeah nice one. Really well done. Cheers.

Yours in metaphorical hell,

Calothorax Lucifer

I nicked this photo from a dude called Ramon Moller Jensen

Not a bad looking fella, eh?

Olrog was a Swedish Ornithologist/naturalist who spend most of his time in Argentina, where the LBJ lives (as does Ramon).

For the Larophiles out there, Olrog also has a gull named after him, but you knew that right?

Thanks again to Bo Boelens!

Myrtis Fanny.

Fanny's Woodstar.

Gurgle.

Another in the series of frivolous and daft bird names courtesy of Bo Boelens' book (if I plug it enough do I get boosted up the Fatbirder ranks perhaps?).

Now most birders will have heard of Spix’s Macaw, due mainly to the fact that there are not very many of them at all. Anywhere.

Well today’s offering isn’t that. A contemporary of Spix (a naturalist that had that particular parrot particularnamed after him) also went of to study things in Brazil on the same expedition (and no doubt shot a large portion of the findings). Anyway, his name was Natterer and he was Austrian. The sensible thing would have to have given him a parrot too, as Natterer’s Parrot would have been great – or maybe an amphibian even (his Christian name was Johann, so he could possibly have been called Jack...), but no.

He got a bat - Natterer’s Bat. Fine with that. Might even have seen one.

He got a bird – Natterer’s Slaty Antshrike. Which although clumsy, tickles no funny bones.

And then someone (Temminck I reckon) gave him another bird – Natterers Vizer Bearer, which does.



Obviously I have to know what a vizer is…





1 definition found vizer - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :





Vizier \Viz"ier\, n. [Ar. wez[imac]r, waz[imac]r, properly, a bearer of burdens, a porter, from wazara to bear a burden:





A councilor of state; a high executive officer in Turkey and other Oriental countries

So this cruel, cruel, vindictive man was using these tiny little birds as his bloody porters.

So this naturalist dude goes to New Guinea just after the fin de siecle and for his troubles gets a bird named after him.

Nice one, says he.

Stupid, say we.

Moszkowski Green Winged King Parrot

Alsterus chloroptes moszkowski

http://www.sunbird1.co.za/male-2.jpg

A little weekend treat – the third in the series of mental bird names courtesy of Bo Boelens.

Today we have….

Diggles’ Chocolate Parson Finch
Poephila cinca nigratecta

The person that actually put pen to paper must have known that they were creating a monster, no?

The putative Willet by Wandsworth Bridge from yesterday will go unsubmitted as I forgot my camera yesterday, so even if I had found something rare or photogenic there was no way of recording it. I did manage to glimpse a Little Grebe and a Grey Wagtail, but it was a largely uneventful day bird wise.

There is a Dunnock that has found it's voice as the light rises (well I can hardly describe it as the sun coming up these days) and it is improvising - if I didn't know that it was the only singing passerine in the area, I'd be hunting it down to find out what it was with the inevitable 'oh, it's a Dunnock'. Good sounding healthy bird though.

So lets have another bizarre bird name readers!

Following on from yesterday, there are other species that begin with 'Mrs' - Mrs Swinhoe's Sunbird, Mrs Gould's Sunbird, Mrs Sage's Blood Pheasant (sounds like a Fanny Craddock recipe) and Mrs Vernay's (I think) Blood Pheasant, but they are not pressing my humour button.

Today's offering is possibly the most convoluted one I could find and the least field friendly - as soon as the first cry of identification goes up everyone will look to the sky for an eagle and by the time you've finished naming it the bloody thing will have gone back into the scrub that it came from....

Verreaux's Grey-headed Puffback Flycatcher Batis minima.

Stick that one on your pager suckers!

The irony of the binomial in the Latin name is not lost...

This is the first in a short series of completely bizarre bird names. The ornithological equivalent of Moon Unit Zappa, or Zowie Bowie. For those pretentious taxanomists that cannot bear to let their moment of fame be wasted by the mundane.

While at Cley last summer, we purchased 'Whose Bird' by Bo Beolens and Michael Watkins which is a cracking read, basically outlining who the movers and shakers are in the history of bird nomenclature. There are the ones that are familiar to many birders, Forster, Steller, Yarrell, Cetti etc etc and many many more that are known only to a few (probably the peeps that have seen the species in question) and even Lucifer gets a namecheck. There are also some utterly strange ideas of what a good name for a bird would be, and so my first offering is...


Mrs Forbes-Watson’s Black-flycatcher (Melaenornis annamarulae)



No wonder it is more likely to be called Nimba - not the handiest name to shout out in the field...