Information is mostly taken from the exciting new addition to my library, The Bird Name Book, Princeton University Press, 2022, by Susan Myers. These are birds who visited the garden yesterday or today. Two of the photos are from previous posts.
The Robin (redbreast), Erithacus rubecula. Robin is a diminutive of Robert and in fifteenth century England, we learn, it was common to assign the names of people to birds. Very many bird names now include “robin” mostly thanks to British colonial expansion, names being given “at times out of nostalgia or homesickness, at others arguably just from a lack of imagination.” They are our most popular bird and seem fearless of humans compared to many but I wonder if they would remain so popular if more people knew that the main cause of death amongst male robins is … other male robins. They are highly territorial.
I have already covered the origin of the name “Chaffinch” who visited again today here:
The return of a Chaffinch – Animal Wild
The Dunnock, Prunella modularis. From Old English dǒn, brownish-grey and Anglo-Saxon -ock, a diminutive. So the original little brown bird perhaps but to my eye they are far from dull. There is an early reference in Catholicum Anglicum, 1483 citing the birds’ hatching and feeding of cuckoos’ eggs. For a long time they were known, taxonomically incorrectly, as Hedge Sparrows.
Wood Pigeon, Columba palumbus. The pair above are noisily engaging in what parents have often told their children is “trying to make more pigeons.” Pigeons are really Rock Doves and the oldest domesticated bird. 151 species have the pigeon name. Susan Myers says that Wood-Pigeon is hyphenated but in a footnote from Animal Wild I pointed out that even the British Trust for Ornithology is inconsistent about it.
The origin of “pigeon” is the most surprising yet to me, beginning with third-century Latin piponem, from pipio, to chirp or peep, which these birds surely do not do. Then Old French pijon to Middle English pijoun and variants.
I have already covered sparrows here:
Books about Bird Names – Animal Wild
but I just rather liked the photo below.
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