The naming of birds

By David Bentley

Volunteer and Trustee of the Friends of Rye Harbour Nature Reserve

I love the names of birds. They can be educational, evocative and amusing but mostly they are just lovely. They whet the appetite and tantalise. Who wouldn't want to try to see a Nuthatch, Skylark or Nightingale?

Some bird names tell you what they do: Nutcracker, Bee-eater. Some bird names tell you what they look like: Red Kite, Spoonbill. Some bird names tell you what they sound like: Curlew, Cuckoo. Some bird names tell you where they come from: Alpine Swift, Balearic Shearwater. Some bird names tell you where they like to live: Reed Warbler, House Sparrow. But beware, some bird names mislead you: Bearded Tits are not tits and Black-headed Gulls have brown heads.

My favourite names are those that have a story behind them. The Wheatear is said to be a derivation of the bluntly descriptive 'White-arse.' A Redstart has a rusty-red tail, 'steort' being an old word for tail. The Whinchat is named after a northern word for gorse. The Latin word 'peregrinus', means 'wanderer' and was applied to the Peregrine Falcon which can travel far and wide, particularly outside the breeding season.

Some birds are so entwined in our collective consciousness and past that they have multiple names, often with geographical variations. The Lapwing is also known in the UK as Green Plover, Peewit, Pyewipe and Tuit. Additionally, the scientific name of a bird is generally instructive. Back to our old friend the Lapwing, whose Latin name is Vanellus vanellus, meaning 'little fan', which points towards its distinctive 'flappy' flight.

I don't much like it when some birders mess around and shorten bird names. I don't want to hear about 'Groppers', just Grasshopper Warblers. I've never seen 'Blackwits', only Black-tailed Godwits. I understand that speed of communication is sometimes important in the field and that in those circumstances corners can be legitimately cut. But I'm not keen on this shorthand in writing. I want my 'Mippits' to be Meadow Pipits and my 'Chiffys' to be Chiffchaffs. And please don't even think about telling me about a 'Spawk' instead of a Sparrowhawk.

Then there's whether or not to use capital letters for bird names. I've written things in the past without capitalising bird names, thinking they might be too formal and put off non-birders. But, I've come around to believing that it's almost always best to use capital letters to avoid confusion. Without them is a 'little ringed plover' a Little Ringed Plover or a small Ringed Plover?

Overall our bird names provide beguiling labels for our wonderful avian assemblage. They can be intriguing like Whooper Swan, Dotterel and Merlin, they can be luxuriant like Kingfisher, Golden Oriole and Firecrest and they can be quaintly minimalist like Blackbird, Swift and Blue Tit. But they should all be appreciated. I suppose I should end with my favourite bird name. It changes of course, almost daily, but today it's Willow Warbler.