birding-aus

historical derivation of common name of noisy miner

To: Dave Torr <>,
Subject: historical derivation of common name of noisy miner
From: brian fleming <>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:08:56 +1100
I have often wondered why Miners, particularly Noisy Miners, have that name. (The Noisy bit is obvious.) It could be confusion with the Indian bird. But I recall descriptions of gold-rush scenes back in the licence-hunting days. The human miners' reaction to police was often to make a frightful noise to warn their mates, banging on panning-dishes and yelling "Joe!Joe!Joe,joe, joe!". Which sounds just like the mobbing behaviour of the birds. This may be far-fetched. But I think it might fit. Plus the birds' dirty faces. I must say that in the bush many people call them "Mickies" (why?) or "Soldier-Birds" - presumably because of their value as sentries, giving warning of a stranger approaching an isolated farm-house.

Anthea Fleming


On 21/01/2012 11:44 AM, Dave Torr wrote:
When I went to the Wikipedia home page to search for Noisy Miner (as the
link did not initially seem to work - I think it was just rather slow) I
discovered the "Featured Article" was the Variegated Fairy-wren!

On 21 January 2012 08:12, Cas Liber<>  wrote:

I suppose it arose out of the bird's dark grey and black face resembling a
coal-miner's blackened face (?) but have never seen it written, apart from
gould's notes that the term "miner" came from Tasmania originally. Anyone
seen anything written? Also for such a common bird, I've not seen much
aboriginal material, either names or folklore about it....

A couple of us have been developing the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_Miner


Cas


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