An apology;

My posting on this thread of April 27th was done as a knee jerk reaction which at the time seemed like a snappy retort, but with the benefit of hindsight, strikes me since as more of an example of needless petty point scoring and as inappropriate on this particular thread in the context of the theme.

I therefore sincerely apologise to Ian, who was obviously upset and distracted by my comments.

I should like to add that my view of Ian is such that he is one of the good guys whom I should happily follow into battle (or would have, were I younger, fitter, stronger, and with a little more common sense than I have now).

Sincerely,
Mike P.

I think there's a romance to Loon. Diver is a bit utilitarian.

I also use international names in my note book - I've done some birding abroad, and again, there's a pleasure to knowing those names are in place because our avifauna fit into a bigger international picture.

Fauna Britannica by Stefan Buczacki is a veritable treasure trove of local names for many species of bird which is a fascinating topic in itself. For example, he gives 26 different names for a Kestrel such as Mouse Hawk, Red Hawk, Wind Bivver, Wind Fanner and Windsucker. The name mentioned by Tim Wilcox as "Windf****r" was, according to the book, used in 1599 and was still in use in the ninteenth century. Its literal translation is "Wind Beater".

As far as the name Loon is concerned, whilst I don't like it myself, Fauna Britanica tells us that it was originally an Old Norse name that imitates the moaning call of the Red-throated Diver. The habit of these birds of diving under the water rather than facing an enemy led to the use of the word loon to mean "cowardly" and Shakespeare uses it in this sense in Macbeth.

Elsewhere on the IOC website you will find reference to 'disagreements between the Nearctic and Palearctic Sub-committees'. What this means is that the Americans won out with 'Loons' and 'Barn Swallow' but lost out with e.g. 'Dovekie' and 'Mew Gull'. If you want to see what the Americans call birds around the World it's all in Clements Checklist of The Birds of the World. Where, ammusingly, the '(Common) Whitethroat' is called the 'Greater Whitethroat'!

Anyway if people want to be 'international' then it's 'Common Chiffchaff', 'Eurasian Bullfinch', 'Eurasian Jackdaw', 'Great Northern Loon', 'Barn Swallow' etc., etc. and frankly there's just no need on a UK county birding site in my view and that was my complaint here.

NB Rob country names for birds is another subject altogether beyond expansive official naming. In Robert Macfarlane's 'Landmarks' you will find that an old (and rude) name for the Kestrel was 'wind-f___r' ! BTW Thick-knee is the recognised term for all 9 species in the Stone Curlew family so not really a country term...

"Well over an hour spent on this thread now, I ask myself why I bother..."

Might as well have my 2-penneth! I will tell you why you bother Ian, because you want to, and because you should. If you didn't bother, we probably wouldn't have a forum that works as well as it does! (And I wouldn't be able to annoy the pants off people when I post )

In the examples of Sandpiper or Scoter, in my view you have to specify since there are more than one species in that family. But I suppose with Whitethroat...you don't necessarily need to specify Common, although do if you want to, as the other Whitethroat is fully specified as Lesser. I try and put the correct species name in my post every time, and why not??? We travel a few hours to go and see the birds sometimes so why not take a few extra seconds to write the full name?

In the case of LOON'S, I've never used it myself as I think it was totally the wrong word to be used for some of our best and strikingly plumaged birds in the DIVERS, and they are certainly no Loons when fishing! But the Collins uses Loon as the correct term and the Americans use Loon when they've appeared in a North American wildlife film. Personally I don't use the term.

The verdict is still out on using terms like MIPIT, GROPPER or BLACKWIT where 2 names are condensed, I have used them but not too over keen on doing so. I don't know why!
However that said, my Dad was an old school birder and he used a few terms and old names for species as I was growing up including
...THICK-KNEE which I knew exactly what he meant as being a Stone Curlew,
...GOAT-SUCKER which I knew was an old farmers term for Nightjar,
...BOOMER for Bittern,
...TIT-MOUSE for Long-tailed Tit,
and one which I used on this forum
...GREEN PLOVER for Lapwing.
My Dad used it quite often. Although he was 80 when he passed away last year so I can only assume was used more so in his younger days as a birder.
Anyway that's just a few thoughts for what they're worth.
Cheers
Rob

I now have the answer to my provocative question which started off this debate: the IOC World Bird List (version 5.2 - like a software update no less) defines in its principles why the moderator 'common' is added for the purposes of an international list of approved English names and it is that 'each species shall have one name only'. This is further defined under principal number 2. Unique Name: '...the full name of one species should not be included in the longer name of another species. This rule prohibited a pair of names like Black-headed Gull and Great Black-headed Gull, forcing the initial adoption of Common Black-headed Gull. Adoption of Pallas's Gull for l.ichthyaetus in response to good feedback allowed us to drop the 'Common' and return to the preferred traditional name'.

Collins says this: 'English names nowadays exist in short form for everyday use, and in longer form for international use (with added modifiers). A way of conveniently showing both these English names for the same species is practised: at the head of each species entry, bold face is used for the ordinary names and normal type within brackets for the extra modifiers'.

So there you have it: '(Common) Whitethroat'!

-- Edited by Tim Wilcox on Monday 27th of April 2015 11:50:12 AM

Roger Baker 3 wrote:

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Ian, you forgot to mention where you put the sweeping brush handle ?
Roger.

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I think we all know where that goes Roger, probably a long queue of folk wanting to help out with that respect too

Ian, you forgot to mention where you put the sweeping brush handle ?
Roger.

I have got to agree with Barn Swallow as being particularly annoying, "One Barn Swallow doesn't make a Summer" is not very catchy!! Agree too about spelling with Ian too. But also can see the point of shortening names, especially so in the field when calling stuff out (like on a seawatch) to get folk onto stuff quickly. But agree that can be a bit off-putting for folk who don't know the 'twitching' parlance and make people feel excluded, which is not what our hobby is about! Shame I missed the Hudwit though on Saturday in Somerset

Mike Passant wrote:

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But what is it to be in the Systematic List on Manchester Birding, - "Pomerine" Skua or correctly Pomarine Skua?

My last posting on this topic was edited out without comment.

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What has the systematic list on the website got to do with this forum, or indeed this thread??? They are linked only by name and owner and have no point being raised on here, the two are separate entities.

I think, without looking very hard at all, you'll find plenty of spelling mistakes on the website, not least as was written in haste (and a certain amount of ignorance to such things) over eight years ago now (the systematic list included) but feel free to write a big long list of those many spelling mistakes and send it to me and as soon as I find time in between being a husband, dad, full time fireman, head coach of a rugby academy, county bird recorder, chairman of a rarities committee, editor of a bird report, moderator of the one the country's busiest birding forums, running a website and occasially being a birder, I'll get right on to it.

Well over an hour spent on this thread now, I ask myself why I bother...

Quote from below:

- "It's the misspelling of birds' names that this forum is against..."

I fully agree of course, and have (as most people) made mistakes in the past readily pointed out and corrected by others; (examples in my case have been "Shoveller" and "Grey Lag Geese") and humble pie accordingly eaten and fully digested.

But what is it to be in the Systematic List on Manchester Birding, - "Pomerine" Skua or correctly Pomarine Skua?

My last posting on this topic was edited out without comment.

"Told off"...really...

Let me clarify this thread for the purpose of this forum; both the current official British (English) vernacular names (ie Whitethroat) and IOC International English names (ie Common Whitethroat) are acceptable to use, they are merely a matter of personal choice but both are officially (BOU) recognised.

Terms like scoter, gull, tern and sandpiper are not though (unless of course you've seen one you can't identify down to a specific species so are being general in its use), they are family names and are not specific to any species.

Yet if I said I'd seen any of the following I'd probably be "told off" for not being more specific: Scoter, Gull, Tern, Sandpiper. Would people automatically assume "Common"? As for "Loon" - love it!

John O'Neill wrote:

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While we are (almost) on the subject could it be possible (by useage alone) to revert back to "Sea Eagle " rather than the hideous and bookish "White Tailed Eagle" ? (Even " Erne " would be preferable...)

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Not sure when we're reverting back to, as the British vernacular name in 1923 was White-tailed Eagle!

For what it's worth and potentially revealing myself as an old fogie...I hate the convention of adding "European" or "Common" or whatever in front of birds' names.

Like Craig, "Barn Swallow " is one that particularly irks me.

While we are (almost) on the subject could it be possible (by useage alone) to revert back to "Sea Eagle " rather than the hideous and bookish "White Tailed Eagle" ? (Even " Erne " would be preferable...)

Whilst I don't like the 'Gill & Donsker (2012) / IOC international English names' of birds myself because I'm old fashioned and don't much like change, if someone wants to go to the length of adding extra 'official' words in like 'common' then that's fine as far as I'm (and this forum) concerned. Of course if we start going the whole hog and start calling divers 'loons' then I might have a word

It's the misspelling, abbreviating and general desecration of bird's names that this forum stands against and yes, I realise that many would (rightly?) believe that Gill and Donsker's (2012) recommendations are just that; desecration! They remain the 'officially recognised' International names though.

I must admit Tim, this practice does annoy me a little. Why do I have to call a Swallow a Barn Swallow? Its a Swallow. Always has been, always will be. And, yes a Bewick's Swan always will be too. Thats why we have scientific names isn't it? To distinguish between species with similar common names? However I do 'get' that since we have become more international, and since we have learned more about speciation and the various sub species/clines/races whatever level of detail you want to go down, the lumping and splitting of species etc, there is a need to be a bit more specific sometimes about which species we mean.

But, until Rough-legged Buzzard becomes the most numerous species in the UK I will refer to it as 'Buzzard'.

Paul Wilson wrote:

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I must admit that I use international full names more nowadays. Mainly this is because of the internet - it being international.

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It's not 'international' and it's not sound either in my view. This 'overnaming' tendency led to the idiotic renaming of Bewick's Swan as 'Tundra Swan' by some stupid 'international' naming body thus demoting the involvement of one of our greatest naturalists and artists, Thomas Bewick because some American numpty said so.

-- Edited by Tim Wilcox on Sunday 26th of April 2015 11:15:32 PM

I must admit that I use international full names more nowadays. Mainly this is because of the internet - it being international.

Since when did we have to start calling Whitethroats 'Common Whitethroats' and Buzzards 'Common Buzzards' etc. We don't need to. They are not so named in my Dad's copy of the Collins by Roger Peterson et. al. so they do not need to be over-described now. Confusion species are perfectly distinguished by the descriptors, 'lesser', 'rough-legged' etc.