There seem to be relatively few groups of birds that predominantly
occur in Australia that don't have names based on unrelated English
analogues - robins, quail-thrush, shrike-thrush, wrens etc. Some of
the exceptions would probably be honeyeaters, butcherbirds, currawongs.
How many species in Australia are named after non-English analogues?
That is, named after species that don't occur in England. Cockatiel
is probably one.
I think that the official common names reflect that fact that the
people who named them in the nineteenth century were either English or
English colonials. In contrast, the English names of the bird species
in Peru are rarely based on European analogues. Like honeyaters,
names actually describe the group of birds rather than comparing them
to analogues.
The Brush Turkey is a classic example of English mislabelling. Not
only is it totally unrelated to European Turkeys, it's name is
disconnected from the other megapodes. If it were correctly labelled,
it would be some sort of Bushfowl (in line with Scrubfowl and
Malleefowl).
Regards, Laurie.
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