Birds. They’re getting renamed, and I say, great! Finally, hen names for birds! As lengthy as we’re renaming dozens of birds to make them extra readily identifiable and guarantee nobody has to provide shout-outs to enslavers or the person responsible for the Trail of Tears when, say, attempting to level out an oriole, I’ve some ideas to share! Should you take heed to me about hen naming? Absolutely not. “I only know two tunes,” Ulysses S. Grant reportedly stated. “One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other isn’t.” That is how I’m about birds. If you’re not a pigeon, duck, sparrow or Canada goose, I don’t know what you’re. But that has not stopped me from forming opinions. Here, in no explicit order, are all my ideas about hen names and options for bettering them:
Robin: I object to this. “Robin” shouldn’t be a hen identify. “Robin” is a person identify, and I don’t know the way it acquired blended in right here. It is like having one breed of cat named Dave. Call it Red-Chested Brown Bird.
Cardinal: I do know I simply objected to “robin” as a result of it was a person identify, however “cardinal” is humorous. Absolutely wild that anyone checked out this hen and stated, “This looks like a specific member of the Roman Catholic hierarchy!” and everybody simply went with it. I feel we must always do extra naming of birds for trying like individuals issues. I attempted to consider good examples, however all I got here up with was that orioles appear to be members of the Baltimore Orioles, and that’s recursive.
Pyrrhuloxia: This is an precise identify for a hen, a sort of cardinal. To that, I say, “No, it isn’t.” This sequence of letters is what occurs when your cat jumps onto the keyboard. This shouldn’t be the form of factor anybody needs to be anticipated to say out loud, least of all when mentioning a hen. By the time you will have efficiently pronounced this phrase, that hen is gone. This might be a prescription drug with an annoying business, however what it isn’t is a hen.
Duck: The downside with “duck” is that it’s additionally a verb. I recommend we rename the hen a Noun-Duck. I not too long ago was attempting to throw some rubber geese at individuals as prizes, and it seems there’s not a superb factor to yell in case you are throwing geese but additionally need some individuals to bend their heads and get out of the best way. Toward that finish, I make this suggestion: In that situation, you’ll yell, “Duck! Here comes a Noun-Duck!” or “Verb-Duck! Here comes a Noun-Duck!”
Chicken: As the mother or father of a kid who eats meals but additionally is within the stage of life the place you be taught numerous animal noises, I transfer that we do for the hen what has already properly been completed for the pig and cow: sever the animal identify and the food-made-from-that-animal identify from one another. “What are we eating?” “Chicken.” There is not any believable deniability there. We want believable deniability! Let us break the hen information on our personal time. No, I don’t have a greater identify in thoughts, however “chicken” must go.
Ostrich: Hear me out on this. So, one of many large issues with the alphabet is that we don’t have good, easy phrases that begin with each letter. I as soon as noticed a kids’s alphabet e book attempting, with out disgrace, to assert the phrase “extinct” for the letter X. I don’t agree, however I see why the e book tried. Poor xylophone is exhausted, and X-ray shouldn’t be significantly better off. This is a place the place birds may help. “Quail” is doing yeoman work for the letter Q, which might in any other case be pressured to lean on “queen” and “quilt.” Now, O is doing simply tremendous. O has “owl.” O doesn’t want “ostrich.” But you recognize what letter doesn’t have any good birds? X. We want a superb, distinctive hen that begins with X, and I feel it needs to be the ostrich. Don’t change anything, simply tack on the X. Xostrich. It’s no weirder than “ostrich”! Xostrich. It’s tremendous. Let’s depart it and hold going.
Rooster: These needs to be referred to as Crowers, not roosters. Every hen is a rooster. This is like calling just some individuals sitters or liars, relatively than actually all individuals. (This joke works higher out loud.) What units roosters aside is that they crow. That is what its identify ought to emphasize.
Crow: I understand my choice to capriciously rename the rooster goes to trigger some issues for the common crow. So, I recommend we name crows Cawers. Hmm, no. I don’t like this. I shouldn’t have been put in command of renaming birds. Better thought! Let’s name crows and ravens (I do know one is larger, however I can by no means bear in mind which one) Corvids of Some Kind. This will save time! “I saw a corvid of some kind, and it gave me $6 in coins in exchange for my sandwich, and I felt too cowed to say anything.” Or Black Birds. That is correct and descriptive, but straightforward to recollect.
Blackbirds: Ah, I’m starting to see the problem right here. And these aren’t crows I’m listening to? These are one thing totally different? Well, what number of hen names do we’d like? I’ll come again to this.
Bluebirds: Now, that is ridiculous. Who allow them to get away with “bluebird”? Also, there are blue birds that aren’t bluebirds. This identify is a catastrophe.
Blue jay: Now, here’s a hen that’s blue. And it isn’t a bluebird, you’re saying? If we’re allowed to name blue birds “bluebirds,” however not all blue birds are bluebirds, that is chaos. Look, if individuals need to hold calling these “blue jays,” they will hold doing so, however “bluebird” also needs to be acceptable.
I really feel that it’s doable I’m making issues worse now.
Flamingo: Pink Bird.
Great blue heron: WHO DID THE PR FOR THIS BIRD? This person needs to be referred to as in to do the renaming as a substitute of me! This person clearly knew what was happening.
Bald eagle: This hen shouldn’t be bald. It has feathers on its head. This hen clearly wanted the PR assist that the good blue heron obtained in spades. This hen needs to be referred to as the Eagle With White Feathers on Its Head.
Owl: Seems tremendous. No notes.
[Christian Cooper: Why the National Audubon Society must change its name]
Starling: These needs to be referred to as Sequin Birds! Look how properly turned out they’re! They aren’t grackles, apparently.
Vulture: “Not the New York magazine vertical, the bird!”
Grouse: Noun-Grouse.
Quail: Starts with Q, and I like that about it! Confusing to spell, for followers of Dan Quayle, though it might not be the one factor that was complicated to spell for followers of Dan Quayle. I’ve no quarrel with this hen.
Crane: I like that this hen can be a model of bathroom. I want extra birds had this distinction.
Grackle: I not too long ago realized after years of pondering I noticed grackles in all places that what I believed was a grackle is actually a starling. I don’t know what a grackle is anymore. Maybe I’ve by no means seen a grackle. No naming options for this hen till I can unravel this.
Goldfinch, raven: Because of the novel and the poem, I suppose technically “The Goldfinch” and “The Raven” are literary works, whereas the birds are simply “a goldfinch” and “a raven,” respectively. I feel that is unfair to the birds.
Parrot: Repeater Bird.
Toucan: Bill Bird.
Albatross: Wedding Guest With an Ominous Tale to Tell Accessory Bird.
Stork: Baby-Reveal Bird.
Peacock: Just go along with NBC. Less complicated branding.
Pigeon: So, I’ve considered this lots. The present state of affairs is not any good. In city areas, that is going to be one of many solely birds you see, together with sparrows. They should be extra minutely labeled, to make seeing them extra of a thrill. Here is a bit of taxonomy I got here up with: Surprisingly Indoors Pigeon; Hungry Pigeon; Statue Pigeon; Pigeon Actively Pooping; Pigeon Eating Something Weird. Now, we would want to give you higher names than these. Instead of Pigeon Eating Something Weird, let’s imagine Grosbeak. That’s possibly one other hen, however I’ve by no means seen one, so maybe they don’t exist.
Roadrunner: My most important objection is that this hen bears no resemblance to the cartoon character of the identical identify. Look at them. Look at them and inform me that you just had any thought the Road Runner was alleged to be a hen.
Sparrow: Sparrows needs to be renamed Thrilling Sparrow and Fabulous Sparrow and Rare Sparrow. Look, as you go about your day in an city space, that is going to be your most-seen hen. Imagine the elevate you’ll get from saying, “I saw a rare sparrow today!” or “I saw a thrilling sparrow, and it tried to eat some of my sandwich crumbs.” You would really feel like an completed birder! Some say, “This is name inflation,” however I say, “Okay!”
Seagull: I’m intentionally leaving seagulls out of this, not as a result of I hate seagulls however as a result of I need to get numerous emails from readers saying, “Why didn’t you mention seagulls?” Also, for somebody who almost by no means goes to the ocean, I really feel that I’m consistently seeing seagulls round, at riverfronts and lakes and issues? They shouldn’t be there. Either their geography is dangerous or they undervalue themselves.
Mockingbird: I’ve promised to purchase my child one among these many instances if she hushed and didn’t say a phrase, and at this level I’m hopelessly indebted to her so far as mockingbirds go. Hush-Money Birds.
Canary: Gold Bird.
Goldfinch: Dang it.
Color-Winged Adjective Bird: Look, I don’t hen (verb) fairly often or very nicely, however I agree with the birders who say that these birds are by no means named for a trait that’s truly seen to anyone watching a hen fly by. I don’t know what we do about this; I simply thought I ought to point out it.
Dove: We can’t change this. It’s already in a Prince track.
Grebe: Sweet desires are made of those. Who am I to dis a grebe? (That’s it, that’s the one thought I’ve on grebes.)
Goose: I feel this needs to be renamed Goose, Not the Human Being Who Died in “Top Gun” however Just a Bird — nevertheless it could be bizarre to have a hen whose identify was explicitly a spoiler for “Top Gun”? No, possibly not.
Hawk: War Bird.
Falcon: Surely I’m not the primary to debate the query of whether or not the existence of the Millennium Falcon signifies that falcons exist within the Star Wars universe! But that’s wild to consider! That, or falcons within the Star Wars universe aren’t birds. Maybe they only lucked into that mixture of letters and a falcon, within the Star Wars universe, is, like, a wrench or one thing.
Penguin: Tuxedo Bird.
Dodo: Just in case these cease being extinct I need to have a greater identify ready for them. How about Cherished, Respected Bird Who Certainly Wasn’t Called a Dodo Up Until About 80 Seconds Ago?
About this story
Illustrations and web page design by Michelle Kondrich. Development by Yan Wu. Editing by Autumn Brewington.
