birding-aus

names

To: 'Stephen Ambrose' <>
Subject: names
From: Michael Hunter <>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 01:58:37 +0000
Dom had it right.

"Western Warbler" also has a nice lilt to it, like its song.

Otherwise gentlemen, your contrary argument is precisely my point. What the
Spaniards or Argentines or Americans or British call a bird is irrelevant to
what we know it as as Australian birdwatchers. Birdwatchers may contribute
to Ornithology observations but should not be bound by the pseudo
systematics of bird guide authors, admirable though their publications may
otherwise be.

The first time I saw a South American Jabiru, the history of how the
Australian Jabiru came up, and how it was named made the whole exercise more
interesting and memorable. "Jabiru" is used for the African saddlebill as
well.  ("How dare they")

                                      Cheers

                                           Michael
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Ambrose 
Sent: Tuesday, 24 January 2017 12:21 PM
To: 'Denise Goodfellow'; 'michael hunter'
Cc: 'birding-aus'
Subject: names

Just to add a lighter side to this debate ...

I remember the late Dominic (Dom) Serventy, running a bird identification
course at the Eyre Bird Observatory around 1981 - one of the last times the
renowned and aging ornithologist was able to run such a course or excursion.
At the end of the first day of bird-watching, the course participants
gathered around to produce a list of birds seen or heard that day. One of
the species on the list was the Western Gerygone. A bird-watching rookie in
attendance asked how to spell "gerygone" correctly, upon which Dom
responded, "W-A-R-B-L-E-R."

Stephen Ambrose
Ryde, NSW


-----Original Message-----
From: Birding-Aus  On Behalf Of
Denise Goodfellow
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 2:35 AM
To: michael hunter
Cc: birding-aus
Subject: names

When I asked the question on Facebook most replied that they called the bird
'Jabiru' even though some were aware of the official name.  A Bininj
grandson in Gunbalanya wrote "Yeah at top end area we called it jabiru big
name but aboriginal name its DJAGANA".  And he's right, as far as Kunwinjku
and related peoples are concerned - in my experience they all use 'Jabiru',
as do most of the people I guided over thirty years.

Much of Australia's avifauna (and other fauna) is known by European names,
although there is no close taxonomic association. And 'Bandicoot'  is the
common name of a genus of Asian rodents.  I don't see anyone calling for
these names to be changed.

Denise Lawungkurr  Goodfellow
PO Box 71
Darwin River, NT, Australia 0841
043 8650 835
Ornithological systematic but







On 23 Jan 2017, at 3:56 pm, michael hunter <> wrote:

>
>   Once again a few academics, mostly not Australian, if not
> Un-Australian,
are foisting otherworldly names onto us Aussie birders.
>
>  Common names , NOT ENGLISH names, for Australian birds are names
> commonly
used by about 99% of Australian birdwatchers for our birds. It is appalling
that colourless English names like Black-necked Stork have been inflicted on
us by a few pseudo-academics who are presumably incapable of memorising
Scientific names.  Jabiru may be the common name of a South American Stork,
but changing the official "common" name for any birdwatcher witless enough
to confuse the two in the field was an amazing arrogance. One justification
was that people reading birdguides will be confused in not justified.
>
>   These people are meddling with our Australian common names, which
> are ,
or were, spontaneous non-scientific vernacular.
>   Among many examples, "Jabiru" and "Torres Straits Pigeon" had
> romantic
(in the broad sense folks) connotations lost in the bland generics we are
told to use instead. As a youth my first sighting of the legendary Jabiru
was very exciting, and stimulated a life-long interest in Birding.  Seeing a
Black-necked Stork would not have.
>
>  "Willy Fantail"   They must be joking.
>
>         Resist.
>
>                Michael
>
> <HR>
> <BR> Birding-Aus mailing list
> <BR> 
> <BR> To change settings or unsubscribe visit:
> <BR>
> http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
> </HR>

<HR>
<BR> Birding-Aus mailing list
<BR> 
<BR> To change settings or unsubscribe visit:
<BR> http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
</HR>


<HR>
<BR> Birding-Aus mailing list
<BR> 
<BR> To change settings or unsubscribe visit:
<BR> http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
</HR>

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU