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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