> X-Sender:
> From: "Paul Coddington" <>
>Does anyone have any idea why BFCS would be called Blue Jay,
> given that they are not blue, and don't seem to bear any relation
> to jays (Eurasian or North American)?
>
> Paul Coddington
> Adelaide, South Australia
>
Names are only labels after all - to quote Dr. Leach of Leach's
'Australian Bird book'
The adjectives 'blue' and 'red' are often used in a non-literal sense
when naming or describing animals and birds.
'Blue' is quite often used to indicate a blue-grey colour, as in 'blue
heeler dog', and 'red' quite a dull rufous - just think of the
Red-necked Avocet, and the European Robin Redbreast. I have read many
bird descriptions in which blue and red clearly did not mean anything
like sapphire or vermilion.
(I have noticed than many male humans have a degree of colour-blindness
or Daltonism - they find distinguishing between different reds as
scarlet, crimson, or flame impossible because all appear as a dull or
muddy rufous).
Back to the Bifcus (an acronym if you hadn't spotted it)- a
conspicuous bird of a bluish-grey colour which needs a label - Blue to
start with, and Blue-jay was a known combination to the immigrant. It is
no sillier than our Magpies or Robins.
I refuse to speculate as to why Apostlebirds are known as 'Lousy
Jacks'.
Anthea Fleming
in Ivanhoe (Vic)
>
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