Names DO matter, but not just birds, surely? What about e.g. Banksias? And those of us mammals called Mitchell, Horsfield, etc, should also have our names changed.
Excellent contribution thank you Geoffrey. It should provoke some interesting discussion. Happy Christmas time everyone.
From: Canberrabirds <>
On Behalf Of Geoffrey Dabb
Sent: Thursday, 22 December 2022 8:17 AM
To: Canberrabirds <>
Subject: Spam:*********, [Canberrabirds] Not much going on, but ...
I notice that this chatline is going through one of its quieter periods. Here is some news, then. There is a debate going on within Birdlife Australia about whether to eliminate all personal bird names, that is English
bird names that refer to people. Example are Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo, Horsfield’s Bronze-Cuckoo and Australia King-Parrot. The reason is that people see a strong case to change some names, like the Major’s cockatoo, but no easy way to decide whether other
names recalling Australia’s colonial past should remain or go. There is a similar debate going on in North America. This is not an easy matter to resolve, as there are so many opinions out there. More will be heard about this, I’m sure.
To offer a little graphic relief, I have the below observation from last week, from the backyard.
I’m pretty sure ‘Rainbow Lorikeet’ is not a personal name, but, as there is a strong generational flavour in all this, anyone with a 1980s childhood might see the Rainbow Brite connection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp74T9b4Z40&ab_channel=CartoonIntros
