Monthly Archives: April 2021

Bird names matter: Top ornithologists and organizations endorse name changes for all species named after people

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At the American Ornithological Society (AOS) Congress on English Bird Names on April 16, 2021, a host of prominent organizations and individuals endorsed “bird names for birds”, a widespread effort to rename eponymous or honorific species names with more descriptive names, focusing on their physical or ecological attributes. For example, Wilson’s Warbler could become Black-capped Warbler, Townsend’s Solitaire might become Northern or Juniper Solitaire, and Kittlitz’s Murrelet would probably be re-named Glacier Murrelet.

MacGillivray’s Warbler was named by John James Audubon after his friend, William MacGillivray, a Scottish ornithologist who never came to America. Audubon also coined its Latin specific, tolmiei, to honor William Fraser Tolmie, a Scottish employee of Hudson’s Bay Company based at Fort Nisqually during the period of Native removal. Scientific, or Latin names, are subject to international rules and are not the focus of this process.

While specific new names have not yet been chosen, representatives of the American Birding Association (ABA), National Audubon Society, as well as David Sibley and Kenn Kaufmann, all heartily endorsed developing a process to make the changes, noting that new names would engage a larger audience, contribute to greater equity and inclusivity among birders and the interested public, and could aid in public communication and conservation efforts.

The effort has grown out of the national reckoning on racial equality in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing. Movements to change names are underway with regard to parks, mountains, streets, other wildlife, and even rock-climbing routes. Current names generally go back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries during European expansion across North America and recall an era of conquest, when species and landforms were “discovered” – and some named after the individual who documented them, or after their friends and colleagues.

An FAQ, full list of the panelists, and a video of the Congress can be found at the AOS English Bird Names website. The direct link to the video is here.

Sibley commented that, the more he learns about the names, “the more they cast a shadow over the bird” and “the name doesn’t mean just the bird anymore. They have baggage.” Out of respect for people and the birds, they “should not have to carry a reminder of our own fraught history.” Choosing between stability and respect, Sibley stated “I choose respect.”

Name changes over social justice concerns began last year when McCown’s Longpsur was changed to Thick-billed Longspur, after widespread outcry because McCown was a Confederate general and involved in the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. A proposal in 2018 for that name change was roundly rejected. 

Name changes for these reasons are not new; most birders can probably recall the switch from Oldsquaw to Long-tailed Duck in 2000. At that time, the American Ornithologists’ Union, the precursor to the AOS, asserted that the name change was not for reasons of “political correctness” but merely to conform with usage elsewhere.

The Bird Names for Birds website includes bios of various people memorialized with bird names. For example, Townsend (of the solitaire, warbler, and storm-pretrel) collected Native skulls for his friend Samuel Morton, author of Crania Americana. The November 2020 issue of Birding magazine focused on name changes, with a strong endorsement by ABA President Jeffrey Gordon and a longer article providing historical background. It is available here for ABA members.

Bird Names for Birds, a group of interested birders, was instrumental in reaching out to the larger organizations to participate in the congress. In their words, “Eponyms (a person after whom a discovery, invention, place, etc., is named or thought to be named) and honorific common bird names (a name given to something in honor of a person) are problematic because they perpetuate colonialism and the racism associated with it. The names that these birds currently have—for example, Bachman’s Sparrow—represent and remember people (mainly white men) who often have objectively horrible pasts and do not uphold the morals and standards the bird community should memorialize.” They describe such names as “verbal statues” that should be removed.

Jordan Rutter of Bird Names for Birds argued that, when reaching out to the public to protect an endangered sparrow, Bachman’s Sparrow has much less appeal than an alternative name rooted in local ecology that the public could identify with. Kaufmann pointed out that Bachmann was a pro-slavery white supremacist and that the species was formerly known as the Pinewoods Sparrow.

In the AOS’s own language, “The Community Congress opens the discussion on the complex issues around eponymous English Bird Names…. The specific aim of the Community Congress is to provide an opportunity for a broad range of stakeholders from the birding and ornithological community to share their viewpoints, including challenges and opportunities from their perspectives, to best inform future next steps to address the issue of naming birds after people.”

The AOS Congress on English Bird Names was superbly moderated by José González, providing a model for the process ahead.

Keepers of various ornithological databases also participated in the Congress, including representatives for eBird, Christmas Bird Counts, Breeding Bird Surveys, and the Bird Banding Laboratory. While noting potential complications with name changes (and changes in four-letter banding codes), they all agreed the hurdles were not insurmountable. Indeed, name changes, as well as taxonomic lumps and splits, occur every year, with name changes being the simplest of the three to address in data management. eBird currently supports bird names in 47 languages, including 14 different versions of English. Where Americans see Black-bellied Plover, Brits see Grey Plover.

Marshall Iliff of eBird pointed out that the effort is also an opportunity to clean up old taxonomic messes, pointing out that Audubon’s Shearwater has been used for eleven different combinations of nine different taxa. In this case, he said, fresh names for specific taxa will provide clarity, not confusion. He embraced a worldwide effort to “dig into the essence of each species” to “find inspired and appropriate names.”

For now, the effort will be limited to primary eponymous English bird names. The effort will not include secondary names (e.g., American Crow, named after the continent, which was named after Amerigo Vespucci). Other problematic names, such as Flesh-footed Shearwater for a bird with pink feet, were not discussed.

Many suggested using Native names for species, though most stated this could be challenging because 1) names from Native languages may have been lost, or 2) most bird species’ ranges span multiple historic aboriginal territories and languages, creating a conundrum over which indigenous word to use. The exception to this is Hawaii, where indigenous names are already in widespread use. Among mammals, moose, raccoon, and skunk are all derived from Algonquian.

Does Lawrence’s Goldfinch deserve a better name?

Looking at Version 8.0.8 (March 12, 2021) of the ABA Checklist, 115 of the 1,123 species, or a little over 10%, are named after people. Of these, 2 (Bishop’s Oo and Bachman’s Warbler) are considered extinct, and 20 others are Code 4 or 5, meaning they occur extremely rarely in the ABA area (though three of these are regular in Mexico, within the AOS area). The remaining 93 are all Code 1, 2, or 3, and can be expected to be seen in the ABA area regularly.

Here are the 113 non-extinct species from the ABA Checklist.

Ross’s Goose

Steller’s Eider

Stejneger’s Scoter

Barrow’s Goldeneye

Gambel’s Quail

Erckel’s Francolin

Clark’s Grebe

Vaux’s Swift

Rivoli’s Hummingbird

Anna’s Hummingbird

Costa’s Hummingbird

Allen’s Hummingbird

Xantus’s Hummingbird

Ridgway’s Rail

Wilson’s Plover

Temminck’s Stint

Baird’s Sandpiper

Wilson’s Snipe

Wilson’s Phalarope

Kittlitz’s Murrelet

Scripps’s Murrelet

Craveri’s Murrelet

Cassin’s Auklet

Sabine’s Gull

Bonaparte’s Gull

Ross’s Gull

Franklin’s Gull

Pallas’s Gull

Belcher’s Gull

Heermann’s Gull

Forster’s Tern

Salvin’s Albatross

Wilson’s Storm-Petrel

Swinhoe’s Storm-Petrel

Leach’s Storm-Petrel

Townsend’s Storm-Petrel

Tristram’s Storm-Petrel

Murphy’s Petrel

Fea’s Petrel

Zino’s Petrel

Cook’s Petrel

Stejneger’s Petrel

Bulwer’s Petrel

Jouanin’s Petrel

Parkinson’s Petrel

Cory’s Shearwater

Buller’s Shearwater

Newell’s Shearwater

Bryan’s Shearwater

Audubon’s Shearwater

Brandt’s Cormorant

Cooper’s Hawk

Steller’s Sea-Eagle

Harris’s Hawk

Swainson’s Hawk

Lewis’s Woodpecker

Williamson’s Sapsucker

Nuttall’s Woodpecker

Nutting’s Flycatcher

La Sagra’s Flycatcher

Couch’s Kingbird

Cassin’s Kingbird

Hammond’s Flycatcher

Say’s Phoebe

Bell’s Vireo

Hutton’s Vireo

Cassin’s Vireo

Steller’s Jay

Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay

Clark’s Nutcracker

Bewick’s Wren

Pallas’s Leaf Warbler

Blyth’s Reed Warbler

Pallas’s Grasshopper-Warbler

Middendorff’s Grasshopper-Warbler

Townsend’s Solitaire

Bicknell’s Thrush

Swainson’s Thrush

Bendire’s Thrasher

LeConte’s Thrasher

Sprague’s Pipit

Pallas’s Rosefinch

Cassin’s Finch

Lawrence’s Goldfinch

Smith’s Longspur

McKay’s Bunting

Pallas’s Bunting

Botteri’s Sparrow

Cassin’s Sparrow

Bachman’s Sparrow

Brewer’s Sparrow

Worthen’s Sparrow

Harris’s Sparrow

Bell’s Sparrow

LeConte’s Sparrow

Nelson’s Sparrow

Baird’s Sparrow

Henslow’s Sparrow

Lincoln’s Sparrow

Abert’s Towhee

Bullock’s Oriole

Audubon’s Oriole

Scott’s Oriole

Brewer’s Blackbird

Swainson’s Warbler

Lucy’s Warbler

Virginia’s Warbler

MacGillivray’s Warbler

Kirtland’s Warbler

Grace’s Warbler

Townsend’s Warbler

Wilson’s Warbler

Morelet’s Seedeater

There are also several hybrids (e.g. Brewster’s and Lawrence’s Warblers), prominent subspecies (e.g. Thayer’s Gull and Audubon’s Warbler), and superspecies (e.g. Traill’s Flycatcher) that are used in some databases. It is not clear if these will be addressed at this time.

Goodbye California: Reminiscences of a climate refugee

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There are a lot of reasons why I’m moving from California to Washington, including family and other personal considerations. But one reason, one big reason, is California’s rapidly changing climate.

It was late February in the Coast Range of northern California when I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Dust swirled around my car in the dirt parking lot at Cold Canyon. The car thermometer, warmed by a sun that felt imported from Palm Springs, said 87 degrees; it was actually only 77. A hint of ash, omnipresent since The Fire last summer, remained in the air.

Its oaks torched with little hope of return, Putah Creek Canyon is quickly resembling a sun-scorched canyon in Arizona. Until 2018, only one fire in the area had burned more than 15 square miles. Then the County Fire burned 140 square miles. In 2020, the LNU Complex Fire burned 570 square miles.

The hillsides were green with the new growth of non-native grass, which was responding to a recent heavy rain. That was deceptive. More than half the rain we’d had in the previous eight months came in that single event. We had six inches of rain in all of 2020. Looking beyond the grass, nearly every tree – blue oaks and gray pines – on the hillsides was dead, burnt black and orange monuments to a previous era. For our local blue oak woodland, that era ended last year and, given that recruitment of saplings is unlikely due to heat, fire, and cattle, it was an era that will never return.

Massive die-offs are eliminating blue oaks from the southern third of their range. Black oaks are marching up the Sierra, displacing Ponderosa pine, which are marching up, displacing firs. Everyone is on the move. Oak woodlands are becoming oak savannahs, oak savannahs are becoming grasslands, grasslands are becoming rocky high deserts. Arizonification is happening quickly, thru heat, drought, and ultimately, thru fire.

Virtually all of the east slopes of the Coast Range between San Francisco Bay and the Trinity Alps has burned in the past ten years. In the Sierra, one can practically predict where the next fire catastrophe will happen, because it hasn’t burned yet (hint: Lake Almanor, Placerville, Arnold).

The Fire, the LNU Complex Fire, was part of 2020’s 4.3 million acres of scorched earth. The LNU Fire exceeded the total acreage of all previous fires that impacted my county over the last 50 years combined.

It was a beautiful day—for April. But February has become April, April has become May, and June, July, August, September, and even October and November have become unrecognizable. Every year more heat records are broken. Hottest summer, hottest month, most days over 100, most days over 90. The list goes on, each year breaking the records set the previous year. Weather data is normally highly variable; now it is a straight line—warmer and warmer. And smokier.

My cape honeysuckle and bougainvillea, both planted with a degree of optimism outside their recommended zone, used to die back so badly in the winter that each spring I was tempted to declare them dead and pull them out. Now they bloom year-round, looking like they’re in a courtyard at a hotel in the tropics. We haven’t had a real freeze in seven winters.

The songs of lesser goldfinches on my street are a depressing warning. I can’t take two steps outside without seeing or hearing a bird that reminds me that our climate has seriously changed. Western tanagers, house wrens, and turkey vultures are regular in winter now. The lesser goldfinches have come out of the arid hills and are quickly becoming one of the most ubiquitous nesting birds in Davis. (I know this definitively because one included an imitation of a canyon wren in its song.) What’s more, at least four Say’s phoebes, essentially a high desert species, are scouting for nests in town now. A fifth arrived on my block last week, singing as if on territory. They’ve been doing this for a few years and their numbers are growing.

The graphs of acres burned in California (and in other western states) and the expansion of some bird species into the Pacific Northwest (in this case, Anna’s hummingbirds in winter), are strikingly similar.

I’m leaving. I’ve lived in California fifty-five years but it’s no longer the state I grew up in.

We’re headed to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. We are fortunate to be able to do so.

Besides the cooler summers, one of the best things about moving to a new place is that I won’t be reminded of climate change on a daily experiential basis. Because the ecosystem will be new to me, I won’t know what’s different, what is changing, except maybe for the brown boobies, a tropical seabird, that are now showing up in Puget Sound each year. Or the family of California scrub-jays that have just established residence on my new street. Like Anna’s hummingbirds, black phoebes, great egrets, red-shouldered hawks, and people like me, scrub-jays are moving north. I expect more of California’s birds to follow me, just as I follow some of them. Yes, lesser goldfinches are coming north too; they’re already established southeast of Tacoma.

I feel like a frog in a boiling pot. I’m getting out. I’m saying goodbye to California, but I feel it has left all of us without saying goodbye to anyone.

The view from Point Wilson, a mile from my new home in Port Townsend, which has had only a few nights below freezing all winter. Climate change is occurring there too, but remains well within temperate ranges.

I do believe that Homo sapiens may ultimately win the climate battle and bring atmospheric CO2 back down to 300 ppm or something. But that’s a hundred years off. And there’s no guarantee we can stop the tide of Greenland and Antarctic ice melt to prevent sea level rise. In the meantime, in the next 50 to 100 years, it’s going to get a lot warmer. And we may ultimately lose New York City, Singapore, Mumbai, and every other low-lying coastal city. My new home is fifty feet above sea level. Well, probably forty-nine and a half now.