birding-aus

FW: Bird tautology

To: 'Philip Veerman' <>, "" <>
Subject: FW: Bird tautology
From: Peter Shute <>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 10:15:36 +1000
There might be more to it than adding clarity. Some people seem to like to do 
it in normal speech with some common bird names that most people would know are 
birds. E.g. jay bird, cuckoo bird.

Peter Shute 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birding-Aus 
>  On Behalf Of 
> Philip Veerman
> Sent: Thursday, 25 September 2014 10:00 AM
> To: 
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] FW: Bird tautology
> 
> Yes but does it matter a lot? It is to aid communication for 
> those who do not know automatically that tern and the others 
> you mention already are bird names. Some of the names are too 
> short and obscure without a qualifier. Why should anyone who 
> doesn't happen to know, think official names like Redthroat 
> is a bird or Luzon Bleeding Heart, that isn't even given a 
> useful name like Luzon Bleeding Heart Pigeon. But it would 
> surely be hypocrisy to be too critical on this as we also use 
> "bird" as part of many official
> names: lyrebird, butcherbird, bowerbird, antbird, grassbird, bird of
> paradise,   etc. What is really strange is that the same 
> situation is used
> for so many frogs and fish (maybe more than not), but as far 
> as I know, it is never used for any mammal. We never get Red 
> Fox Mammal, Phascogale Mammal, Echidna Mammal, Blue Whale 
> Mammal, etc. 
> 
> Philip
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birding-Aus 
>  On Behalf Of 
> Neil Cheshire
> Sent: Wednesday, 24 September 2014 7:41 PM
> To: 
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Bird tautology
> 
> 
> Has anyone else noticed the annoying trend of adding the word 
> 'bird' or 'birds' to common bird names such as tern, 
> cormorant etc. This evening's introduction to 'Wild Britain' 
> mentions "nightjar birds" I have even seen it in a circular 
> from the South Australian Dept. of Environment and Natural 
> Resources which referred to "little tern birds". There 
> appears to be cultural cringe/PC that does not want to offend 
> or bewilder anyone who may be unaware that a tern, cormorant 
> etc is in fact a bird! End of rant
> 
> Neil Cheshire
> Encounter Bay,
> South Australia.
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