Please Stan, not fish! I have a talk on fish names, for a different audience. Then there’s the Trivia question, ‘What’s the difference between a Mangrove Jack and a Laughing Jack?’
From: Canberrabirds <>
On Behalf Of Stan Jarzynski via Canberrabirds
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 2:33 PM
To: Philip Veerman <>; 'Canberrabirds list' <>
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] FW: Bird name madness
Similarly, I and others spent years trying to sort out fish names used in Australia. An era of frustration.
From: Canberrabirds <> on behalf of Philip Veerman <m("pcug.org.au","pveerman");">>
Sent: Friday, 9 February 2024 5:47 PM
To: 'Canberrabirds list' <>
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] FW: Bird name madness
A bit about plant names. There is plenty of similar confusion about plant names. I suspect the situation is just as bad with fish.
My relevant story is, for about three months in 2005, I was employed by the Federal Primary Industry department, in a data input role, retyping a book of plant
names into a MS Excel spreadsheet. An odd story: the section dealing with monitoring invasive plant species in Australia had a problem with understanding the plethora of local names used for these plants. They did not have any mechanism for cataloguing these
names as they were reported. They did have a reference book that listed the names and attached them to scientific names. However it was only a book, with an inadequate index. Even after a lot of negotiation, the publisher (or author) refused to give or sell
the government access to the raw data in the book. So they recruited someone (me as it happened) who could type, who could handle an Excel spreadsheet and who could be undaunted by scientific names and common names, to completely retype the book with all those
names into a spreadsheet, which would allow them to do quick searches on all these different taxa and what they were called. As I am OK but not a superfast typist, I got most of the way through the task until the money ran out.
Philip.
From: Canberrabirds
On Behalf Of Martin Butterfield via Canberrabirds
Sent: Friday, 9 February, 2024 5:22 PM
To: Steve Read
Cc: Canberrabirds
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] FW: Bird name madness
Drat should have read “… plants or insects use scientific names.”
On Fri, 9 Feb 2024 at 17:20, Martin Butterfield <> wrote:
It is interesting that - in my experience - most people with more than a passing interest in plants or insects. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to apply to birds, so if communicating to a non professional audience common names are needed.
Also, the forces of political correctness leading the current push have scientific names honouring people in their sights as well as the English names.
Peut etre nous utilisez les noms Francais?
On Fri, 9 Feb 2024 at 17:09, Steve Read via Canberrabirds <> wrote:
Hi all
The way I keep my sanity through these changes is to hold fast to the scientific name of the taxon. These tend to change only occasionally, and usually for a formalised and
well-argued reason.
In this case we have
Ixobrychus dubius, a perfectly valid taxon that is now recognised as a full species but which was previously only recognised as a subspecies of the more cosmopolitan Little Bittern
Ixobrychus minutus. Understanding that helps me from worrying about whether Australian Little Bittern or Black-backed Bittern is used as the common name for our bird by whichever authority. Geoffrey has explained below how in the views of some ‘Australian
Little Bittern’ for I. dubius cannot sit as a name alongside the name ‘Little Bittern’ for
I. minutus, but as it happens I don’t share those views – I think those two common names are quite compatible with each other.
Same logic helps with gull-billed terns or our koels &c. The scientific name relates to the individual taxon or taxa that we might find in Australia, even if the common names
get tangled or new ones imposed with logic I might not agree with.
Happy birding
Steve
From: Canberrabirds <>
On Behalf Of shorty via Canberrabirds
Sent: Friday, February 9, 2024 4:52 PM
To: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Cc: Canberrabirds <>
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] FW: Bird name madness
Ok, I will chime in even though this will never end in harmony.
Both Clements and IOC now refer to Black-backed Bittern ( eBird will update in their Yearly updates I would think ).
Both Clements and IOC refer to Pink Cockatoo.
Both Clements and IOC refer to Australian Crake ( Removing the (Spotted) )
Names will always be changing, we can either accept it or let it get us down.
On Thu, Feb 8, 2024 at 5:56 PM Geoffrey Dabb via Canberrabirds <>
wrote:
Oh dear, Martin. I’m afraid that opens up some other issues. First, are your preferences set to ‘English (Australia)’? As we once discussed, a former birding colleague of ours here used to help by aligning ebird ‘English (Australia)’
with WLAB (Birdlife list), but without total commitment.
Just quickly, and I hope not too inaccurately, below graphic shows varying language treatment of Australian Little Bittern. Furthermore, ‘Eastern Koel’ and ‘Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo’ are not recognised in ebird English (Australia) unless
I’ve missed something.
From: Martin Butterfield <>
Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2024 4:43 PM
To: Geoffrey Dabb <>
Cc: Canberrabirds <>
Subject: Re: [Canberrabirds] Bird name madness
The pious hope in your last sentence is almost an irresistible challenge. May I suggest, should someone be less able than me to control their impulses, that as with other fields of natural sciences,
the answer to that question is "it depends". Mainly it depends on which eminent person in the field of study you are talking to.
It is all a great pity, especially as in my most recent foray into looking at my concordance between eBird Australia and Bird Life Australia the names appeared to be moving more into alignment.
On Thu, 8 Feb 2024 at 14:48, Geoffrey Dabb via Canberrabirds <> wrote:
Warning: bird name issue
I must comment on a bird name point illustrated by this issue of Gang-gang. There is a report about the ‘Australian Little (Black-backed) Bittern’. I sympathise with writers and editors who find this kind of thing necessary. We are
entering a new age of English name duplication where different policies and preferences collide.
From an Australian viewpoint, the new species is the Australian representative of a species group known as ‘Little Bitterns’, with our subspecies being split relatively recently. So it is, to us, the Australian Little Bittern. However
from a global perspective the name ‘Little Bittern’ belongs to a species that occurs in Europe, Asia and Africa, and the global namers do not want to add an adjective, which would be needed if there were more than one ‘Little Bittern’. Hence IOC invents ‘Black-backed
Bittern’ for the Australian species, and inflicts it on Australian users of that list.
The same thing has happened with ‘Gull-billed Tern’. To us, the new species is ‘Australian Gull-billed Tern’, but the IOC retains ‘Gull-billed Tern’ for the widespread species and has invented ‘Australian Gull’ for our species. To add
to the confusion, both species are recorded in Australia, as Gull-billed Tern and Australian Gull (the familar Gull-billed Tern).
It is too much to hope that any single bird group is going to reach agreement on a single set of names, let alone a joint approach with other groups. We are going to see a lot more of ‘One name (second name) (maybe third name)’ so get
used to it. I hope no-one will ask which is the right name.
From: Canberrabirds <>
On Behalf Of
Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 1:02 PM
To: CanberraBirds email list <>
Subject: [Canberrabirds] Fwd: February Gang-gang newsletter now available
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