Well, I'm not sure that we 'all' have such animosity. Lars and I do, at
least. We just think a more descriptive name could have been chosen.
ESPECIALLY, as you have just pointed out, the genus name itself implies
thick-billed. I would imagine that McCown's is the thickest-billed? So
that rather than being merely reiterative as it stands, it might have been
named the Thickest-billed Longspur. I'd go with that. I also like Prairie
Longspur, your suggestion, much more than the billed names. I would
endorse that name the most, except for the fact that Chestnut-collared
Longspur has a similar, prairie breeding habitat.
So, back to the potential Amerindian names. I'll leave that to some
interested person, who has much more expertise than I, to locate such a
name..
Meanwhile we can continue efforts to get Mt. Hood, renamed Wy' East.
Bob OBrien Carver OR
PS I do heartily endorse your desire to visit the grasslands. I had a
great opportunity to visit them about 30 years ago and found the species
you describe. A wonderful place and a wonderful experience. I even had the
experience of submitting a photo of a female McCown's Longspur to Kenn
Kaufman, along with a red-breasted, American Pipit taken above 8000 feet
west of Denver, and a singing first-year male Cassin's Finch. (The pipit
looked a lot like a Red-throated; in their first year Cassin's males are
virtually identical to females; and female McCown's are relative obscure in
plumage) Mr Kaufman was the author of the regular ABA journal quiz. My
free-lance submission was in honor of the upcoming ABA convention in
Denver. He apparently had not created the next quiz and took my
suggestions. However, he also used my descriptions of easy, less easy,
hard for the three different ID levels then being used. This created a lot
of controversy, as many readers disagreed with my relative rankings which
seemingly came from him. After that, Kenn just used three quiz-bird photos
without any rankings.
PPS Thanks for alerting to the Indian tribes' territory map, a really
impressive and interesting creation.
On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 12:31 AM Marie Martin <martin.marie.ellen@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Thanks for sharing that list Robert — after visiting Macaulay, I found the
"Thick-billed" list adds up to 35 unique species, sub-species, and hybrids
accounting for approximately...0.35-0.39% of “described” bird species (i.e.
9000-10000) or 0.19% of the 18000 bird species estimated by Barrowclough et
al. in 2016 (open-access article, research funded by NSF and AMNH for
those interested
<https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0166307>).
Out of curiosity, do you all have the same animosity for "Black-bellied" or
"Black-capped" or "Long-billed" descriptors?
Personally, I think Plain's longspur or Prairie longspur would've been a
cool name given the system they occur in, but it appears that
"thick-billed" is a literal translation of the species' genus,
*Rhynchophanes.*
With regards to indigenous recognition and acknowledgement, I highly
recommend this website for figuring out whose land we are birding on
<https://native-land.ca/>, which also provides links to tribal websites
and resources for learning about indigenous languages. I wholeheartedly
agree, Robert, that one can assume indigenous people had a name for this
species. However, a rough visual assessment shows the breeding range of the
Thick-billed longspur occurs over 10-15 indigenous territories and ~10
unique languages. Perhaps AOS can work with indigenous tribes, community
members, and scholars to figure out the appropriate word for this species
in each language (and if they want AOS co-opting their language). In the
meantime, I look forward to a time when it is safe/appropriate to take to a
trip to the Plains to see Thick-billed longspurs, Mountain plovers,
Long-billed curlews, etc. doing their thing in the grasslands.
On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 11:42 PM Robert O'Brien <baro@xxxxxxx> wrote:
As to Amerindian names for birds, I have little expertise but some
interest. Of the very few I've studied, only the most obvious birds
received names, Smallish birds were given generic names, very similar to
what we sometimes do today, e.g. Little Brown Bird = LBB. Now the longspur
in question occupies a very specific breeding range where it would be most
conspicuous. This bird therefore would be familiar to a very small
proportion of the many Amerindian tribes so that one would only need to
search a small subset for Tom's suggestion. And since it has a flight
song, there would be a fair chance that it had received a name from some
prehistoric US inhabitants I would guess that some of these languages
were no longer extant or at least not easily or fully accessible. But,
with luck, one might find at least one tribal language that names this
bird. *Therefore I strongly endorse Tom's suggestion.* Plus,
ornithologists seem to love to rename birds so renaming this longspur, yet
again, might be a win/win proposition. Especially in light of my previous
response to Lars comments, which I also endorse, a few minutes ago.
As to tribal names for our section of the continent, I've been studying
them off and on for a few months now. This and brief previous research
corroborates my leading statement above. Perhaps I'll be energetic enough
to post to OBOL the results of my reading from the attached photo.
Bob OBrien Carver OR
www.allaboutbirds.org › guide › McCowns_Longspur
<https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/McCowns_Longspur/sounds>
*McCown's Longspurs* are birds of wide-open spaces, the shortgrass
prairies at the ... chestnut, and black males deliver a delightful *flight
song* while parachuting....... (the
rest of this sentence apparently requires payment to access, but this gives
the idea.)
On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 10:51 AM Marie Martin <
martin.marie.ellen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Because the “Plains Indians” were and are comprised of a multitude of
tribes, many of whom have different dialects and/or languages, and probably
had/have different names for what we now know as the Thick-billed longspur.
I would gently suggest we not diminish their sovereignty and independence
further by suggesting indigenous people are monolithic.
While "Thick-billed" is not the most exciting adjective, it is certainly
more descriptive and less boring than a person's last name. If we really
want "birding to be about birds" again, shifting towards common names that
highlight a unique or notable feature of the bird's appearance, behavior,
or ecology seems like an effective way to do that.
On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 10:31 AM Tom Crabtree <tc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
And if the AOS were really concerned about political correctness, why
didn’t they rename the longspur to what it was called by the Plains Indians
long before it was “discovered” by McCown?
*From:* obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:obol-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On
Behalf Of *larspernorgren
*Sent:* Friday, August 14, 2020 3:04 AM
*To:* Obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [obol] Changing names
The French Revolution of 1789 and the October Revolution of 1917
were accompanied by extensive name changing, head rolling, indescribable
hypocrisy. When the AOS changes a name it seems to be driven by the desire
to make it as clunky and boring as possible. There are 450,000 words in
the Oxford English Dictionary but l get the impression the AOS has
consciously limited itself to an official choice of 200 or so.
"Thick-billed Longspur" has all the charm one anticipates from the
quarter master's list of nuts and bolts or the pen of a low level
apparatchik. There was a time when the AOU(predecessor to the AOS) had
official English names for subspecies. The Wilson's Warbler nesting in
western Oregon was "Golden Pileated Warbler". Isn't that an improvement on
"Black-capped Warbler" ?
Of course some will complain that they don't know what a pileus
is. Keep it simple, call it a cap. But almost everyone is walking around
with a phone that's also a camera and a dictionary. The human population is
rapidly aging and benefits from mental stimulus.
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
--
*Marie Martin*
*Faculty Research Assistant*
*Institute for Natural ResourcesOregon State University*
*c: *630-340-2910
--
*Marie Martin*
*Faculty Research Assistant*
*Institute for Natural ResourcesOregon State University*
*c: *630-340-2910
