birdsoup

Naming a newly discovered bird species based on its prominent color or color feature seem like a logical way to describe it so that other can identify it when they see it.  After all, a bluebird is blue, right?  But so is an Indigo Bunting and a Blue Grosbeak.

 In Westchester, a common misnomer is to refer to a Red-bellied Woodpecker as a Red-headed Woodpecker.  It is a woodpecker, a large woodpecker.  And there is a large amount of red color on its head.  And you never see any red color on its belly.   So the logical choice seems to be to call it a Red-headed Woodpecker.  But that would be wrong.  It is a Red-bellied.  Why?

The reason is that there was another species already called a Red-headed Woodpecker.  Can’t have two different species with the same name.   OK, but why call it a Red-bellied if it doesn’t have a red belly.

To understand this you have to go way back to the time when early ornithologists were first recording and naming new species in North American, maybe 150 – 200 years ago.  In general binoculars or field glasses, if you had them at all, were of poor optical quality.  So bird identification was primarily done by shotgun.  First, you shot and killed the bird, then you picked it up and looked at it very closely.   And during breeding season, this new woodpecker does have a faint reddish blush on its belly, particularly when you ruffle the belly feathers and look at it closely from only a few inches away.   

Hence, the Red-bellied Woodpecker got its name.

Many species of birds are named based on their color.  Sometimes by adding more words to the name gets a little more specific, for example, the Black-throated Blue Warbler or the Chestnut-side Warbler.  That helps.  It works but don’t rely only on the name of the color. 

Trivia:  Most of the 900+ species in North America have multiple word names, sometimes two words, sometimes three words, hyphenated words.  In fact, only 29 species have only a single word name.  How many of them can you think of? 

In my next post, or the one after that, I will identify them.