Borrowed Bird Names

I've been toying with the idea of this post - comparing the Australian birds whose names have been 'borrowed' from European birds with the 'originals' - for quite some time but without the illustrative material to do it. Our recent holiday in Ireland has finally given me the opportunity to take photos of some of these birds, so we can now see and compare the local species with those originals. For this post I have drawn heavily on the research for Australian Bird Names; origins and meanings, published by CSIRO and now in a revised second edition, which I co-wrote with my friend and colleague Jeannie Gray. 

I won't tell the stories of these origins in full here, as some are really quite convoluted, but the book's in libraries if you're interested. It's going to be primarily a photo essay with the abbreviated stories in the captions. Where possible I've used photos of both the species the name was based on, and the Australian species to which the name was probably originally applied, but sometimes that still hasn't been possible so I've used closely related and similar species to get the idea over. Often you'll find that quite a leap of the imagination is required to see what our forebears saw! Usually these names were applied by British colonists in the early days of the foreign settlement of Australia, mostly people with some familiarity with the British birds but with no knowledge or interest in actual relationships. Moreover they were often homesick and longing for some familiarity in  a very strange land. (They could of course have asked the people who'd had names for the birds for thousands of years but that wouldn't have occurred to most of them.)

We'll start with some obvious and straightforward ones, where a name was directly applied based on superficial similarities, and come back to some of them when more convoluted name combinations are involved.

Eurasian Magpie Pica pica, Dublin. This is a very common and conspicuous bird,
 a member of the crow family, found right across northern Europe and Asia.

Australian Magpie Gymnorhina tibicen, Wagga Wagga. Yes it's large and conspicuously
black and while, but that's about it really! Its family Artamidae includes currawongs,
butcherbirds and woodswallows, of which all but the woodswallows are
confined to Australia and New Guinea.

European Robin Erithacus rubecula, Donegal, Ireland. This is a very engaging and
boldly curious little Old World flycatcher which would have been familiar to many of the colonists.

 

Flame Robin Petroica phoenicea, Namadgi National Park, ACT. It seems to me that
the name robin for Australian birds, which arose early in the Sydney colony,
could have been initially applied either to this species (especially in winter when it
came down from the mountains) or the Scarlet Robin, but most likely both.
In either case the resemblance again is pretty sketchy, and while there are pink,
yellow and black-and-white Australian robins, there are no orange ones.

Southern House Wren Troglodytes musculus, Chilean Patagonia. This is in the same
genus as the Eurasian Wren T. troglodytes, but I found the latter to be very difficult
to photograph. However this image is essentially what our forebears were thinking
of when they named the Australian 'wrens'.

Female Superb Fairywren Malurus cyaneus, National Botanic Gardens, Canberra
(where I think all the wrens have been banded by ANU students and other researchers).
Yet again the resemblance is vague - small, brown, cock-tailed and diving into bushes is
about it. And of course it entirely ignores the very colourful males in breeding season.
Nonetheless 'wren' was used from the very early days of the colony, initially for this
species, but it was later expanded to scrubwren, emuwren, grasswren, heathwren etc, for
more or less closely related groups. (The group name 'fairywren' was only coined
in the 20th century.)

Red-billed Chough Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, Great Saltee Island, Ireland.
This is another crow, one of just two members of the genus, mostly associated
with mountains or coastal cliffs, where they typically forage on nearby short
grassland, as this one was.

White-winged Choughs Corcorax melanorhamphos, in Canberra.
They are black and have a curved bill, but neither bill or legs are red, though
their eyes are, all in contrast to the original chough. They are in a uniquely
Australian family of just two species of mud nest builders (with the Apostlebird).
In this case most of the settlers wouldn't have been familiar with the European chough
which lived in pretty remote places; it was the scientists who named it and were
badly led astray by the superficial resemblance, even into the early 20th century.

Pied (or White) Wagtail Motacilla alba, Cork, Ireland. A familiar species across
a huge range covering Europe, all of Asia and some of North Africa. The family
Motacillidae includes wagtails and pipits, of which only one pipit species
is found in Australia. Significantly, in this context, the name Willy-wagtail
was apparently applied to it (according to the authoritative Australian National
Dictionary) but only on the Isle of Man and in Northern Ireland.

 

Willie Wagtail Rhipidura leucophrys (and two species of honeyeater) Gluepot Reserve,
South Australia. This is an odd and somewhat mysterious story about one of Australia's
most familiar and fondly regarded birds. The oldest record we can find for the name
is in a south-east Queensland newspaper in 1882, though earlier oral usage seems likely.
The Australian National Dictionary (see previous caption) asserts that the name
was transferred to our bird but doesn't explain the late arrival of the name.
However on balance it would seem a huge coincidence if there was no connection.

Welcome Swallows Hirundo neoxena, Canberra. This species is very similar to and
closely related to the Barn Swallow H. rustica, which would have been very familiar
to British settlers and found throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere. In fact
I suspect that most of them would have just referred to both species as 'the swallow'
without distinguishing them.

Dusky Woodswallow Artamus cyanopterus family near Canberra. The name Wood Swallow
was applied to it early in the days of the Sydney colony (allegedly because of its
habit of perching on tree stumps) and often just elided to 'swallow', being lumped in
with 'other' swallows until the end of the 19th century. This was based purely on its habit
of soaring and catching insects in the air, as do 'real' swallows'; as mentioned earlier
the woodswallows are in the same family as magpies, currawongs and butcherbirds.

Mixed flock of woodswallows hunting insects over the Gulf Country savannah
of tropical Queensland.

But things started to get a lot sillier as the essential unfamiliarity of most Australian birds overwhelmed people trying to fit them into familiar boxes. They often felt obliged to coin combined forms that were usually, quite frankly, weird. Here are some of these combinations that we still use today.

For instance if we put 'magpie' into a name (see previous photo) it implies black and white, but what other bird did someone blend with it?

Ideally I'd have used a photo of a Eurasian Skylark Alauda arvensis, which is the lark the
new colonists would have been thinking of, but I haven't quite managed one, so this
similar and related Spike-heeled Lark from northern South Africa Chersomanes albofasciata
will have to stand in. It hardly matters as neither would seem to have anything in common
with one of our commonest birds which now shares their name.

Magpie-lark Grallina cyanoleuca, Canberra. I can't ague with the black-and-white implication
(indeed I grew up in Adelaide calling them Murray Magpies, for the river, because their
mud nests require them to live near water). But a lark? Hardly, but the colonists
were using this name from the early days of Sydney. This one has always eluded me.
Larks are classically renowned for their song (eg Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending)
but while I love the stroppy Magpie-larks, it's not for their singing prowess!

The shrikes, family Laniidae, are a largely northern hemisphere family of small to medium predatory songbirds and while they are not naturally found in Australia, their name recurs in compound bird names here. Here the reference is to their strong straight hooked bill. The best illustrations I have of this are from true shrikes but which don't carry 'shrike' in their name, but the colonists were thinking of closely related birds in the same genus and with this bill when they scattered the name among the Australian birdscape.

Taita Fiscal Lanius dorsalis, Serengeti NP, Tanzania.

Well if a bird had such a bill and sang beautifully like other birds they'd known, why not call it a shrike-thrush? (Rhetorical question by the way.)

Song Thrush Turdus philomelos, a familiar and famed singer found across Europe,
western Asia and North Africa.

So we have the group name of some of our great songsters, the shrikethrushes. Unlike most of those we've looked at here so far, this was not a spontaneous 'folk' name, but a translation of the genus name coined by the collaborating ornithologists Nicholas Vigors (Irish) and Thomas Horsfield (US) in 1827.

Grey Shrikethrush Colluricincla harmonica, Canberra. I hope you know the call
(if not click on any of these) but the predatory hooked beak is clear here.

OK, what if it has (sort of) such a beak but is black and yellow? Is there a British contender for the 'shrike' name here? Of course there is if you're determined to find it.

Great Tits Parus major are actually not bright yellow, as this Irish one shows,
but the black, white and yellow pattern is distinctive, leading to...

... Eastern Shriketit Falcunculus frontatus, near Forbes, central western NSW.
This name appears to have been first applied by the hugely influential John Gould
in his 1848 7 volume Birds of Australia. He also commented on the similarity
of its foraging behaviour to that of the quite unrelated European tits.

And one more 'shrike'-based compound name, the cuckoo-shrikes. My European Common Cuckoo Cuculus canorus photos are not usable, but the Australian Pallid Cuckoo Heteroscenes pallidus is a good 'body double' for it - indeed until fairly recently it was placed in the same genus. 

Pallid Cuckoo, Canberra.

Which together apparently make a cuckoo-shrike!

Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike Coracina novaehollandiae, north coast NSW.
Everything about this name is mysterious, though one may imagine the dipping flight to
resemble that of a Cuculus cuckoo, plus the hook-tipped shrike beak. However the name
appeared without any obvious prompting in the late 19th century (before that they were
mostly called caterpillar-eaters) and while the group is found throughout southern Africa,
south and south-eastern Asia and the west Pacific, there is circumstantial evidence
that the name arose in Australia. But that's all I've got, sorry!

Back to the thrush for a moment. It has unwittingly been complicit in another of the Great Mysteries of Australian bird names, along with another entirely unrelated bird group.

Brown Quail Synoicus ypsilophorus, north coast NSW. A common and widespread bird
in Australia and New Guinea, very similar to the Common Quail Coturnix coturnix of Europe,
Asia and Africa which many of the colonists would have known.

But put them together and you apparently get a quail-thrush - or at least the eminent and generally very sensible Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) committee tasked with preparing a final definitive list of Australian bird names in 1926 thought you did. Indeed they thought it was more appropriate than the hitherto prevailing 'ground-bird' name, though they didn't venture to explain themselves; I personally think that the port decanter was involved.

Female Spotted Quail-thrush Cinclosoma punctatum, Brindabella Ranges above Canberra.
OK, it lives mostly on the ground (like lots of other birds) and sort of sings - though sort of
not at all like any thrush that I know. Hmm.
The males tend to be more brightly coloured, not that that helps eitheer.

Male Copperback Quail-Thrush C. clarum, near Norseman, Western Australia.

And that's probably enough of these mind-twisting weird name inventions. But I'll finish with two  quite different bird name stories, both brought to the front of my mind in Ireland, which I think are worth mentioning. The first is a much more convincing use of a call than the thrush examples, to name an unrelated bird.

At one stage I stepped out of the car on the Atlantic coast and was immediately challenged by the unmistakable call [I'd suggest you listen to the 7th example, by Nick Talbot, if you're interested] of an Australian Bush Stone-curlew Burhinus grallarius.  

 

Bush Stone-curlew Darwin, Northern Territory.

Fortunately for my mental health I quickly remembered why our bird is so-called. In fact the group name arose in England, where another member of the genus lives (Eurasian Stone-curlew B. oedicnemus) in rocky drier habitats. And I'm getting to the point! Its wailing nocturnal call is remarkably similar to that of the Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata, a large shore wader with a very long down-curved bill, which of course was what I heard in Ireland. In Australia the Bush Stone-curlew is often referred to as simply 'the curlew'.

Far Eastern Curlew Numenius madagascariensis in Cairns, tropical Queensland.
This species, which breeds in Siberia, is very similar to the Eurasian Curlew, and
with similar calls, but didn't influence the naming of the Australian stone-curlew. However it does
help us to envisage the 'model' for the original name.

And finally, and somewhat tangentially, another bird-derived name, though this time not applied to another bird.

This is a Rook Corvus frugilegus, a common Eurasian crow, here in Ireland.

And this is a Rook nesting colony...

... called, yep, a rookery.

But, for reasons uncertain the term came to be used for breeding colonies of seabirds in particular. So these birds, none at all crow-like, are among those which breed in rookeries!

Magellanic Penguins Spheniscus magellanicus, Strait of Magellan, Chilean Pagagonia.

Mixed seabirds, but mostly Guanay Cormorants Leucocarbo bougainvilliorum, Islas Ballasteras, Peru.

Northern Gannets Morus bassanus (part of a much larger colony), Great Saltee Island,
County Wexford, Ireland.

And that might be enough of such silliness, which says a lot more about us and our language than it does about the birds. I think it's interesting though, and it's an excuse to showcase some birds, which can never be a bad thing.

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 26 JUNE

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Animals Drinking; more to it than meets the tongue

All vertebrate life (and probably all other life) needs water, and the simplest way is seemingly just to drink it. However it's not always that simple actually and in fact quite a few animals, including many desert dwellers, rely on getting their necessary liquid intake from their food. This may be from succulent plants or from eating other animals. In general however most animals drink daily, usually more than once. And even among these, there's no one way that all animals drink. 

Among larger mammals (especially larger carnivores and hoofed mammals) lapping with the tongue is prevalent. But even here there are variations. Dogs and relatives scoop with the tongue, while cats quickly withdraw the tongue, 'pulling' water up into the mouth. 

Big male Jaguar Panthera onca, lapping water from a river, Pantanal,
south-western Brazil.

Sumatran Tiger Panthera tigris sumatrae, Adelaide Zoo.
(And this is the only captive animal to feature here, but that lapping tongue was too good to ignore!)

Most herbivores submerge the tip of their muzzle and use the tongue as a pump. (The following three images are old - pre-digital - scans of slides, all taken at Etosha National Park, in the deserts of northern Namibia. Unfortunately they're still the best I've got of drinking antelopes.)

Black-faced Impala Aepyceros petersi, a species found only in northern Namibia
and adjacent Angola.

 

Gemsbok Oryx gazella, a large desert antelope from south-western Africa.

Female Nyala Tragelaphus angasii, truly a beautiful antelope.

Common Warthog Phacochoerus africanus, Waza NP, northern Cameroon.

Southern Giraffe Giraffa giraffa, another old scan from Etosha I'm afraid. To reach the
water, giraffes must either spread stiff front legs widely, or bend them as here. According to
the Etosha NP web site the question of how they managed to get water 'uphill' for that distance was
resolved by a visiting physicist. Apparently the animal uses two 'valves' to achieve
the feat. One valve is formed by the lips, the other by the epiglottis at the back of
the mouth. It first 'sinks its puckered lips into the water and then pulls back its jaw, allowing
water to rush into the mouth, all the while keeping the epiglottis “valve” closed.
Next, the giraffe clenches its lips and relaxes the epiglottis, then pumps its jaw so that
the captured water is pushed into the esophagus.' From time it lifts its neck to
allow collected water to run down into the stomach. As with many animals,
this is when it is at its most vulnerable to predators.

Distant Vicunas Lama vicugna drinking in Salinas y Aguada Blanca National Reserve, southern Peru,
on the northern edge of the Atacama Desert. This wild ancestor of the Alpaca lives only in the high
cold and arid Andes.

Kangaroos have apparently independently evolved a similar lapping system to cats and dogs, with a long narrow muzzle and and long tongue. This also enables desert kangaroos (especially Red Kangaroos and Euros) to access narrow water supplies such as in rock crevices, which are inaccessible to domestic stock.

Euro Macropus robustus drinking from a waterhole in Idalia NP, central Quensland.

Finally elephants, uniquely (well they've got a monopoly on trunks these days!) suck water into their trunks and then blow it directly into their mouths. This one was part of a large loose herd coming to drink and bathe in pools in the Ewaso Ng'iro River.

First it fills its trunk by suction...

... then it squirts it into its mouth.

Birds, obviously enough, must employ different strategies. With a very few exceptions, birds don't have suction available to them - no lips for a start! Accordingly it seems that most birds simply scoop water into their bill and tilt their head back.

Emus Dromaius novaehollandiae drinking from road puddles after overnight rain,
Mungo NP, south-western NSW. 

 

Interestingly these youngsters, at the same site, found it easier to reach the water
from a squatting position.

Here are some other birds using the same technique, though we can't actually see the moment of scooping.

These Apostlebirds Struthidea cinerea were taking advantage of a very shallow puddle by
a water tank in a roadside stop in western NSW.

White-winged Choughs Corcorax melanorhamphos drinking from a dam on
the outskirts of Canberra.

Crimson Chats Epthianura tricolor drinking at a rockhole on the southern
edge of the Great Sandy Desert in central far eastern Western Australia.

A small part of a huge flock of Masked and White-browed Woodswallows
(Artamus personatus and A. superciliosus) drinking at a waterhole south
of Georgetown, central northern Queensland.

Silvereyes Zosterops lateralis drinking in the relative safety of granite boulders
in a creek bed in Warrabah NP, central NSW. Drinking is always a potentially
hazardous undertaking, with predators always likely to be lurking.

A couple of groups of birds however are known to be able to suck; this is advantageous in that it reduces the dangerous time spent at the water's edge. Pigeons are the best-known exponents. They create a sort of peristaltic pump by sending waves of muscular contractions along the oesophagus to pull the water back.

Bar-shouldered Doves Geopelia humeralis drinking (at the same rockpool as the Euro above)
in Idalia NP, central Queensland.

Diamond Doves Geopelia cuneata (red eye and spotted wings) and
Peaceful Doves G. placida (blue eye-ring and barred wings) drinking
at Warrigal Waterhole near Mount Isa, far north-western Queensland.

White-headed Pigeon Columba leucomela in a back yard
on the edge of Nowra, south coast NSW.

Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised to discover that a related family of birds, the arid land sandgrouse of Africa and Central Asia, have a similar drinking adaptation. In their case they suck water into the beak, then tip their head to allow to run into the crop for storage and transport to chicks in nests on the ground.

Black-faced Sandgrouse Pterocles decoratus, Amboseli NP, Kenya.

Chestnut-breasted Sandgrouse P. exustus Serengeti NP, Tanzania.

Chestnut-breasted Sandgrouse, Waza NP, northern Cameroon.
I have included this poor photo because, if you click on it to enlarge, you'll
see that the bird on the left is in the act of tipping its head back to swallow,
spilling some water in the process.

Some of the Australian grass-finches have also evolved a means of reducing drinking time by suction, though they use a different strategy, involving a 'bill-down' posture.
 

Australian Zebra Finch Taeniopygia castanotis drinking in typical position,
Murrawa Bore, Great Sandy Desert, WA.

 

Zebra Finches coming to drink in the evening at Willie Rockhole on
the southern edge of the Great Sandy Desert, WA.

They use their tongues as a double-action scoop, at up to twenty times a second, taking a droplet of water into the mouth, and from there back into the oesophagus and crop, via the pharynx. Other Australian grass finches which can do likewise include Double-bar, Gouldian, Diamond Firetail, Star, Long-tailed, Masked, Black-throated and Pictorella Finches. I don't know if this list is comprehensive, or if all others have been studied and excluded. As far as I know non-Australian grass finches do not have this ability, but again I don't know how far such studies extend.

At a little puddle by the headquarters complex in Serengeti NP,
Red-cheeked Cordon-bleus Uraeginthus bengalus and a
Blue-capped Cordon-bleu U. cyanocephalus contemplate
their drinking strategy. Or not.

I have read (non-authoritatively) that parrots can 'lap' water with their tongue - their tongues are very flexible, so it's plausible - but I've also seen it asserted that most birds also can, which seems contrary to most sources. The fact is that there is a lot of apparently unsubstantiated material 'out there', and some large information gaps.

This Australian Ringneck Parrot Barnardius zonarius at Idalia NP in central Queensland
certainly appeared to me to drinking steadily, not 'sipping and tipping' so I'm inclined
to believe that at least some parrots do 'lap'.

 

I couldn't tell with these - they'd paused their activity to keep an eye on me.

Eastern Rosella Platycercus eximius, Mount Majura, Canberra Nature Park.

Pale-headed Rosellas P. adscitus, taking early morning advantage of the 'infinity pool'
at Cobbold Gorge Station south of Georgetown, north Queensland.

Various nectar-dependant birds, including hummingbirds, sunbirds and honeyeaters, have forked or brush-tipped tongues to take up nectar by rapid movements, but I don't know if the first two have been observed drinking water, which is the topic of this post. I have certainly seen many species of Australian honeyeaters doing so however and many of those have been 'bill down' so not sipping and tipping.

Macleay's Honeyeater Xanthotis macleayanus, drinking at Kingfisher Park, Julatten,
north-east Queensland. Here the brush-tipped tongue is clearly visible, and obviously
'lapping' up the water, as it would flower nectar.

Noisy Friarbird Philemon corniculatus, at the same dam behind the campground
in Idalia NP as the Australian Ringneck just above. The tongue is not visible but
from this position it could only be using its tongue to lift the water.

No chance of seeing detail in this four-species chaos at an elevated trough (above the reach of goats)
at Gluepot Reserve in the mallee lands north of the Murray River in South Australia.
(For the record we have, from the left, White-eared, Brown-headed, Spiny-cheeked and
Yellow-plumed Honeyeaters.)

I've already alluded to a lack of information with regard to the drinking strategies of many bird groups, and this photo, again from the same Idalia NP dam, has caused me a lot frustration in attempting to explain what's happening.

The Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater Acanthagenys rufogularis on the right is behaving as
expected, but what about the Spotted Bowerbird Chlamydera maculata on the left?
Many bowerbirds use a coloured tongue as part of the display routine, but I can find
nothing to suggest that they use it to lap up water. But how else could it be drinking
from that position? I like a good mystery, but explanations are nice too!

 

And finally another mystery, plus an entirely different approach to drinking.

This young Australian Brushturkey Alectura lathami, living in the North Coast Regional
Botanic Garden at Coffs Harbour on the north coast of NSW, drank from this pond
by turning its head on its side - almost upside down in fact - to put its beak into the water.
Needless to say I had no idea what it was up to, and I can't find any mention of such
behaviour anywhere. Any suggestions welcomed!

Any finally, not a mystery, this is a well-known behaviour, but it's pretty amazing to watch.

Magnificent Frigatebirds Fregata magnificens, drinking from a pond on the island of
Isabela, Galápagos. These have briefly settled on the surface, but frigatebirds often
drink by swooping low over a water surface and scooping a beakful up as they go.
The next photo, though again a scan of an ancient slide, shows this behaviour quite well.

 

Lesser Frigatebirds Fregata ariel drinking on the wing from a bauxite mine
tailings pond, Weipa, far north Queensland.

Well I hope I've inveigled you to read this far (or at least look at the pictures); if you've learnt something that you're happy you now know, then I'm happy. Either way, thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.

NEXT POSTING TUESDAY 25 MARCH
Yes, this is a couple of days early but we're leaving the country on 27 March,
until early May.

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