The Definitive Bird Name Tier List

 Greetings bird fans. You know, something I've learned over the years of doing this blog is that all birds are great, but not all bird names are equally great. We've done a little bit of grousing about this in the past, but today I'm going to really dive into this topic and do my best to determine what it takes to name a bird really really well. 

Ready? Let's get to the ranking, which is sure not to upset anyone

F minus Tier: Birds named for people (problematic)

Nuttall's Woodpecker

Hoo boy, do I even have to say it? #BirdNamesForBirds of course, obviously. Yes. There's nothing that sours a birding experience quicker than remembering that the person who assigned his name to this bird was a real piece of work. If you can google your bird name + problematic and come up with results? You've goofed on the bird naming. What do we mean by awful people? Usually, because of the time period in which we got most of our commonly used bird names, we're talking about the colonialists, racists, and general genocide-enjoyers of the Age of Manifest Destiny.

Best Examples: Bachman's Sparrow, named for slavery-defender John Bachman

Audubon's Oriole, named after famous bird painter, slave owner, and white supremacist, John James Audubon. 

McCown's Longspur, which was named after a confederate general and staunch slavery advocate. Oops! This one was so bad that the American Ornithological Society actually did something for once, and now it's called the Thick-billed Longspur, which is probably like a C-Tier Name (so, much better).

Birds of this category that have appeared on this blog: Townsend's Warbler (Grave robber! Phrenologist! read more here) Steller's Jay (the Steller tea, admittedly somewhat milder)

F Tier: Birds named for people (non-problematic)

Rivoli's Hummingbird

Although some don't, I do make a minor distinction here. In my very cursory research there are some birds named after legitimately cool conservationist types and early birdwatching enthusiasts. That is, to me, less bad. However, what is the compelling case to mess around with eponyms in the first place? The idea of someone 'naming' a bird after themselves or someone else, when it almost certainly has a name from the native people of the area, is pure colonialism. Honestly, if you go back and read my blog entries for some of the eponymous birds above, you won't find a lot of these details, because a lot of the time those details are absent from their wikipedia summaries. I guess what I'm saying is that all of these old people are going to get cancelled for something eventually. Let's just get ahead of it now. Also, these names have zero flare. (PS, sign the bird names for birds petition, and read more about the villains of history who somehow get birds named after them.)

The Argument for: In this case, I kind of get the idea. If someone was important to naturalism or conservation, you might want to name a bird in their honor. For the bird watcher or enjoyer these names are basically useless, but they do give you a little sense of curiosity and mystery, and sometimes make you want to look up old historic figures who you may not know much about. Sometimes you might even find out those historic figures were slave owners. If you really want to do this, save it for the Latin name.

Examples: Wilson's Warbler, Allen's Hummingbird

D Tier: Birds named for a feature or location (inaccurate)

Ring-necked Duck

The Palm Warbler, who does not live in Palm Trees, and the Inca Dove, who does not live anywhere within the former lands of the Incan Empire are prime examples of this. A milder version would be The Connecticut Warbler, which has a range that includes Connecticut, but also the entire East Coast, and Mid-West, and parts of Central Canada. Even worse are the birds with inaccurate field markings. The Ring-necked Duck, with it's invisible cinnamon ring springs to mind, as does the Red-bellied Woodpecker, which has a belly that is only visibly red when the bird is "dead, in your hand", as one naturalist was quoted as saying.

The Argument for: There is no good reason to name a bird like this. Maybe it's kind of fun to have a very confusing and unintuitive name once in a while. Makes birding an exclusive club where we get to roll our eyes at newcomers who ask "Wait, why is that called a Ring-necked Duck?" That doesn't sound like a very compelling case in favor to me. Like the eponyms, you also get a little homework assignment where you feel compelled to investigate why these birds have such bad names. Show me a birder who doesn't like homework.

C Tier: Comparative Bird names

Lesser Scaup

Greater this, lesser that, common whatever. These names are boring and not usually particularly helpful. Pass, throw them all away. I will say that there are some descriptor or modifier names that I kind of like, like Elegant Trogon or Magnificent Frigatebird. These are more like superlatives, but they do introduce kind of a wrinkle, since I think they fit best into this category. That's why it's time for me to introduce the "Poetic Modifier".  Any category from here on out gets a full bump in tier by taking a bird name from mundane to poetic. I.e. Magnificent Frigatebird is more like a B name, whereas Common Loon is a C name.

The Argument for: I guess if you live in a place where two birds look very similar, but one is larger, and one is smaller, you have a little bit of a useful name on your hands. I'm looking at you, Yellowlegs. The useless but flattering names are kind of fun. Maybe you just loved the bird so much when you saw it you needed to let everyone know it was extremely elegant. I can accept that.

B Tier: Birds named for a location (accurate)

Western Bluebird

This is the most boring name that a bird can have while still retaining some level of utility for the bird watcher. You run into the problem the problem fairly quickly that birds are generally pretty famous for moving around a lot, so it's hard to lock it down with just one place name. So you end up with a lot of birds being named for whole countries they are in, which doesn't really narrow it down. The habitats are better, and I especially like the Wren series- Marsh, Rock, Cactus, etc. I will admit that some location based named are cooler than others. My own personal scale puts Prairie Warbler and Gila Woodpecker well above American Wigeon and Island Scrub Jay, but your mileage may vary.

A Tier: Birds named for how they look/their physical features

Painted Bunting

I think this is your clear go-to, right? The number one way you would intuitively name most birds if you were asked to do so. Mostly this is not flashy, but it's certainly memorable and helpful. Great Blue Heron, got it. Roseate Spoonbill. Ok! I know what that's going to look like! The low end of this is probably, like, Black Phoebe, but you can get very very creative. Some of my personal favorites are Razorbill, Rhinocerous Auklet, Canvasback, and Vermillion Cardinal (yes, they are named after the Catholic clergy)

A+ Tier: Onomatopoeic Names/Birds named for how they sound

Laughing Gull

You get into trouble with the physical names eventually because there are, let's face it, a lot of birds that are at least a little bit boring looking. You can only have so many Little Brown Sparrows before you start running out of ways to describe the streaks. When you get there, you have some options, and a really fun one is the audio description. This ranges from Catbird (one of the best, sounds like a cat!) to Mourning Dove to Black-bellied Whistling Duck. All terrific names. If you want to take it up another notch further, you can dig into the Onomatopoeia. Bobwhite, Curlew, Chachalaca, Chickadee, Killdeer, and Whip-poor-will are all named for the sounds they make. You can see why every bird can't be named like this, but it's a great option when you have a distinctive call and a not-that-distinctive looking bird. Perhaps my favorite is the Nene. In my view, a bird named in the language of a place's native people also deserves to go up a tier.

S Tier: Birds named for how they behave

                                                                       Burrowing Owl

This is, to me, the absolute zenith of bird name quality. Don't tell me how the bird appears, tell me who the bird IS. What do they DO? What do you imagine their personality is LIKE? The more abstract and loaded with imagery the better. Hermit Thrush? Yes please. Happy Wren? Don't mind if I do. This also applies to birds that have descriptions of their behavior- many family or subfamily names are laid out like this, Creeper, Roadrunner, Skimmer, Flycatcher, Hummingbird, etc. Names like this are fairly rare, but they are always so great. It is also, in my opinion, the area that has the most room for expansion, perfect for renaming some of those eponymous birds. We don't need a Brandt's Cormorant, but an Ambitious Cormorant? Now I'm interested. Just a simple proposal, and I'd be happy to make up personality traits for as many birds as you like, if you're looking for an expert in the field of making stuff up about birds.

Post Script: Birds whose names I have no opinions on: Booby, Dickcissel, Bushtit, etc. These are often listed among the worst bird names, but I think it's ok that some things are funny. None of the birds are actually named after dirty words, except for the Windf*cker. They really meant it with that guy. Anyway, sometimes the etymology is pretty interesting for these birds. Leave them alone!

Wilson's Warbler

Wilson's Warbler
Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, Oakland, California, USA
June 2020
Member of the Wood Warbler Family
§A Confusion of Warblers§

~True Bird Fact~ Most songbirds leave the nest for good once they've fledged. Wilson's Warblers, on the other hand, often return for a night or two. Failure to launch? 

Named for and by:

 

Alexander Wilson
(1766 – 1813)

Called The Father of American Ornithology, and the second only to Audubon in terms of American Ornithology Importance, and that's just in the first sentence of his wikipedia page! Wilson was born in Scotland and his first profession was as a weaver. He took an early interest in poetry and wrote ballads, pastoral pieces, and satirical works about the plight of weavers. These satirical poems were evidently so biting, that he was arrested for a 'libelous and inflammatory' poem about a mill owner. Here's an excerpt, in the original Scots:

Wha cou’d believe a chiel sae trig
|Wad cheat us o’ a bodle?
Or that sae fair a gowden wig
Contained sae black a noddle?
But Shark beneath a sleekest smile
Conceals his fiercest girning;
And, like his neighbours of the Nile,
Devours wi’ little warning
By night or day.

I guess you had to be there. He was also, it should be noted, that he was a very bad weaver, and eventually quit and moved to America, after languishing in poverty.

His career turned to teaching, and eventually he met the naturalist William Bartram, who awakened his true passion. Birds! He resolved to publish illustrations of every bird in North America. He did pretty good at this task, at least better than his weaving, traveling widely, and eventually publishing a nine volume work, including 268 birds, 26 of which were new to his audience of western naturalists. He died young from, and I quote "dysentery, overwork, and chronic poverty." He seems like he was a pretty cool dude, and has a lot of birds named after him. He also seems to have been a direct inspiration for Audubon himself, both in his style of illustrating and his publication.

Wilson's illustration of Red-bellied, Pileated, and... Ivory-billed Woodpeckers

However, bird fans, I am not content to let this topic rest here. There's been a lot of debate in the bird world lately about eponyms and honorifics, and whether birds should really be named for their 'discoverers'. I try to make a little point of this each time I profile a naturalist- that these birds were not truly "discovered", only given new, western names. There were people here before them, and the birds were plenty discovered already. And some of the people who have birds named after them turn out to be truly heinous. There's a lot of overlap, it turns out, between ideas of discovery and exploration and ideas of colonialism and manifest destiny. This includes some naturalists I've written about here, and frankly, I didn't know how bad they were. This is my bad, but racism doesn't often make it into the wikipedia summary, it turns out.

There's been one major recent success for this movement, the renaming of McCown's Longspur to Thick-billed Longspur. This one was named after a confederate general (yikes emoji). So yes, some bird names might be changing, if they are named after particularly bad people. But you can also make the broader argument that it's much simpler to just keep bird names descriptive and do away with honorifics all together. The naming of species after a western discoverer is inherently a colonialist practice. And while we'll lose some potentially 'good ones' like Wilson here, his contributions to birding will not be erased if he no longer has the birds directly named after him. (Although again, who knows, about Wilson. I'm not about to read a whole biography looking for problematic elements). If you agree with this view point, there's a petition that you can sign. I have. Maybe in the future we'll just call this bird the "green black-capt flycatcher", as Wilson originally called it in 1811. Well. Maybe we won't call it that. But something else. Stay tuned.

Townsend's Warbler

Townsend's Warbler
Hilltop Lake Park, Richmond, California, USA
December 2019
Member of the Wood Warbler Family
§A Fall of Warblers§

~True Bird Fact~ When wintering in the south, mostly in Mexico, these Warblers thrive on a diet heavy with the secretions of 'scale insects', a sweet substance called 'honeydew'. This is such a good source of food that Warblers will set up and defend territories around trees and plants infected with the insects. Birds already eat bugs, so this is not really a step up in grossness, if you think about it, but still, I hate this fact. I think it's because I hate these bugs- I think they trigger my trypophobia (side note- why, when you search for a phobia, does google instantly show you a million image results of the thing you are phobic of??)



This is also a Proper Name Bird (PNB), so you know what that means- that's right, it's time for another.... Naturalist Profile

John Kirk Townsend

(1809 - 1851)

Like many creature-discoverers from this time, John was not a trained biologist. He was a physician and pharmacist who just knew the right people. He discovered (normal disclaimer that these animals were all plenty 'discovered' already by the native people who lived in this country) this bird and many other animals on an expedition from Pennsylvania over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. It sounds like a great trip, tbh, especially right now. While he got some good birds, like this guy, and the Townsend's Solitaire, he seemed to focus on small mammals and has like 7 named after him. Can I interest you in a Townsend's pocket gopher, a Townsend's chipmunk, or a Townsend's mole or vole?
His sisters wrote a book called The Anti-Slavery Alphabet, so it's safe to say that he was from a pretty cool family. He died quite young, as you'll notice, from arsenic poisoning. This was due to his development of his own 'secret formula' for taxidermy which included, big shocker, arsenic.

Let's also do a brief [Etymology Corner], cause I want to get more into the naming of birds-
Let's return to another real one, Thomas Nuttal. Remember him? From this woodpecker? Well he was the one who invited Townsend on this expedition, which, again, I want to say I would like to very much do. At the time I covered him I noted that his woodpecker was named in his honor by one of his friends, William Gambel, of eponymous quail fame. So in researching Townsend I learned that this bird was named in his honor by Nuttal. Digging a little deeper, it seems like this group of guys circumvented the norm against naming animals for yourself by naming them all after each other. In modern terms, I think you could say this was a group of real Ornithological Bad Boys who play by their own rules. Is there a movie in this?

Rivoli's Hummingbird

Rivoli's Hummingbird aka. Magnificent Hummingbird (arch., but extremely complimentary)
Madera Canyon, Arizona
July 2019
Member of the Hummingbird Family
§A Hover of Hummingbirds§

~True Bird Fact~ Among the largest of the hummingbirds, it's hard for a Rivoli being this zippy and also so big. In contrast to smaller hummers, they're a bit slower, can actually glide a bit sometimes with their wings, and are more insectivorous. They also have one of the highest recorded heart rate among all vertebrates (420-1200 bpm).

Has, like, half a dozen degrees, loves going to college
Mysterious source of wealth
Names his home/boat with words that no one has any idea of the meaning of, like "Ciceronian" 



Well, we've got a Eponymous bird here, and you know what that means

Francois Victor Massena, 2nd Duke of Rivoli (a 7 year old here, presumably looked older as he aged. This is the only picture I could find, sorry!)

(1799 - 1863)

Francois was the youngest child of Andres Massena, one of Napoleon's military commanders during his whole thing. His father's nickname, by the way, was "The Dear Child of Victory", which has got to be hard on a kid. Described on his Wikipedia page as an "Amateur Ornithologist" (hey, that's me!), he accumulated quite a collection of bird specimens in his lifetime. One of the finest private bird collections, the 12,500 birds were eventually sold to an American naturalist, Thomas Bellerby Wilson, and made their way to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Combing through his collection with his cousin, Charles de Souancé, resulted in the describing of a number of new parrots (new to western science at least). You might remember Francois' wife as the source of the name for Anna's Hummingbird. A hummingbird power couple to be sure.

White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch
Chestnut Hill Reservation, Brighton, Massachusetts, USA
June 2019
Member of the Nuthatch Family
§A Jar of Nuthatches§
★The Largest of the Nuthatches★ (Not for nothin, but still quite a small bird)

~true bird fact~ Like many birds, this one is monogamous. The reason for this arrangement is pretty easy to guess at, it makes both birds less likely to get surprised by a predator. This is also, evolutionarily, a reason many birds travel in flocks. However, this relationship isn't of equal benefit to both partners. The male nuthatch has to watch out less for predators, but the female has to also watch out for the male crowding her out of foraging areas. That means the male ends up better off, and the female, well, probably better off too, but not as much. Sounds familiar somehow... The ladies out there know what I'm talking about.

First Described by....

John Latham

(1740-1837)

This guy! This is a fun guy! I'm excited I get to talk about him, because I feel like in many ways, he's the spiritual predecessor to Amateurnithologist (this blog). We'll get there, but first, some boring stuff. He was an English physician and ornithologist, and the bulk of his work was in Australian birds, which began making their way to England in the 1780's. His first book, A General Synopsis of Birds (nailed it on the title) contained 106 illustrations, which he did himself, many of them never previous described in England. Sounds pretty awesome, but whoopsa-doopsa, he forgot to give them scientific names (the Linnean binomial system was pretty new at the time. He tried to fix his mistake by publishing the same book 10 years later, but this time with a latin title (Index Ornithologicus, still nailin' it) to go along with latin names for all the birds. Unfortunately by that point another dude had already named many of the birds that Lathan had first described, meaning the other guy gets the name and the credit. Still though, they were some pretty good birds that John here introduced to his Western audience, including Emu, Black Swan, and Hyacinth Macaw. No word on how this North American Nuthatch made it's way into his body of work.

He also was not particularly good at identifying birds- his books often had the same bird described multiple times with different names, causing confusion among Ornithologists for years to come. He was still publishing books in his 80's, and according to one reviewer his misidentifications only got worse with time. Quoth one Alfred Newton "his defect as a compiler, which had manifest itself before, rather increased with age, and the consequences were not happy." Ouch. Shoutout to a real one, John Latham, I know your struggle.

Western Grebe

Western Grebe aka. Dabchick aka. Swan Grebe aka. Swan-necked Grebe
Lake Merritt, Oakland, California, USA
December 2018
Member of the Grebe Family
★Largest North American Grebe★
§A Waterdance of Grebes§ (and you should really check out that waterdance. These are technically different Grebes (Clark's), but these guys do the same thing, and were once thought to be the same species actually)

Chain-smoker
The type who wants to reach the peak of his hobby or interest. Driven
Zine contributor


You know, there weren't that many fun facts about this guy, aside from that water dancing (which, again, you should really take a look at), so that means there's time for a Naturalist Profile!

Sir William Lawrence

(1783 - 1867)

A busy and complicated guy, William Lawrence was a surgeon and author. He helped found The Lancet, a really important medical journal, and wrote a bunch of medical textbooks. He might have even been coined the term Biology. He's more famous, however, for his pre-Darwinian takes on evolution and human development. His wikipedia page is long and dense, but the long and short of it is he was right about a lot of things that few people were right about at the time, wrong about a lot of things, and also was declared blasphemous by the English court at the time. It is said that the level of caution with which Darwin published his early work could be attributed to what happened to Lawrence. He bounced back from this ignominy eventually and was made a Baron by the queen shortly before his death.

What does any of this have to do with birds? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There is no mention of this Grebe, or indeed of birds, birding, or even naturalism in his wikipedia page. It almost makes me wonder if I have the wrong 'Sir William Lawrence', but multiple sources describe him as the original describer of this bird, despite it being a bird of the American West, and him being a British Surgeon. A mistake? Who knows! If it were, this would certainly be the first time this blog has been wrong about anything, that's for sure.

Nuttall's Woodpecker

Nuttall's Woodpecker
Solstice Canyon Park, Malibu, California, USA
July 2018
Member of the Woodpecker Family
§A Descent of Woodpeckers§

~True Bird Fact~ Not a tremendously interesting bird, since most of the fun facts I could find about her were things like "she lives near oak trees, BUT DOESN'T EAT ACORNS!" We love to have fun here in the birding community. One thing that's kind of neat, that this bird has in common with last week's Island Jay, is that she developed into a distinct species as a result of a geological split (this time by a desert, not a body of water). Nuttall's speciated from the much larger-ranged Ladder-backed Woodpeckers some time between 2.5 million and 11 thousand years ago, and now only live in Califorina (both the US and Mexican states).

Big fan of 'fun' office supplies (i.e. You Don't Have to be Crazy to Work Here... But it Helps!)
Taking a karate class
They say she doesn't eat acorns, but she tries one every once in a while just to make sure she still doesn't like them



So we have another bird named after an old white dude, so you know what that means. It's another Naturalist Profile!

Thomas Nuttall

(1786 - 1859)

I swear half these guys are named Thomas. Anyway, Nuttall was mostly a botanist who did a lot of work cataloging the plants and trees of the young United States. Mostly considered to be a birding guy because of his popular bird book, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada, which he published in 1832. He also published the first complete record of the Tree Species of North America. It was called North American Sylva: Trees not described by F. A. Michaux. That's the name of another botanist who was working at the time, so yes, this book appears to be a 19th century sub-tweet.

He's got some other stuff named after him, but it appears to be mostly named in honor of him by other people. This woodpecker here, for example, was 'discovered' by his bro William Gambel, whose quail we are acquainted with. I'll take this to mean that he was well liked. He did go on a ton of expeditions and seems like he was very enthusiastic about nature. I give Thomas Nuttall 4/5 stars.

Island Scrub-Jay

Island Scrub-Jay aka. Island Jay aka. Santa Cruz Jay aka. Santa Cruz Island Scrub-Jay
Prisoners Harbor, Santa Cruz Island, Channel Islands National Park, Ventura, California, USA
July 2018
Member of the Crows and Jays Family
§A Party of Jays§

~True Bird Fact~ Once considered to be a sub-species of Scrub-Jay, but spun off into his own species in 1995 (while the other Scrub-Jays became Florida and Western based on where they lived). Since then, we've also seen Western split into Woodhouse's and California Scrub-Jays. Complicated stuff for a bunch of birds that look very alike. Let's see just how alike, shall we?

Island Scrub-Jays are supposedly brighter in color, larger (by 15%), and have a larger beak (20%) than their mainland relatives. The species split about 150,000 years ago, and the specialized island lifestyle (i.e. thick-shelled acorns = thicker, stronger beak) has resulted in these changes manifesting fairly quickly. Side by side like this? I can kinda see it. They also have somewhat different personalities, with these Island guys having less of a fear of people and more curiosity. After I first spotted them, they seemed to follow me around for a while and see what I was up to. Which one do you think is which, reader? Highlight for answer- Top is California, Bottom Island

How Endangered Are They? One of the rarest birds in the USA, there are only about 2,300 of these guys, and they only live on Santa Cruz Island, one of several islands that are part of California's Channel Islands National Park. While they're pretty easy to find once you're there, their entire habitat is less than 100 square miles, which makes them vulnerable to catastrophic events, like a fire, or the outbreak of disease. They are categorized as Vulnerable by the IUCN. They are one of only two species that are endemic (found nowhere else) to California, along with bird blog alum Yellow-billed Magpie.

This great, great bird was first described by

Henry Henshaw

(1850 - 1930)

Born in Massuchutsets, he got his start as a field naturalist when he had to give up school due to poor health, and instead went on a collecting trip to Louisiana. I don't really know how that is better for your health, but I guess it worked for Henry. He went on a number of successful collecting trips throughout the Southwest. During this time he co-founded a lot of bird related clubs, including the Nuttall Ornithological Club, the American Ornithologists' Union, and the National Geographic Society.

In 1893 another bout of ill health led to him moving to Hawaii (has poor health ever been better for anyone than it was for this guy?) He continued to research birds there, and his witnessing of the mass extinction of native Hawaiian birds led him to dedicate the rest of his life to conservation and the popularization of birding. He gave permission for his popular birding book, Fifty Common Birds of Farm and Orchard, to be published in National Geographic, which led to the creation of the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America. His lobbying efforts led to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act being signed into law in 1918. He seems like he was a really good guy.

Bullock's Oriole

Bullock's Oriole 
Mt Burdell Preserve, Novato, California, USA
May 2018
Member of the Blackbird/Oriole Family
§A Pitch of Orioles§

~true bird fact~ Like many Orioles, has a real sweet tooth. Eats nectar, berries, and fruit, and even steals the sugar-water from hummingbird feeders if given the opportunity. Unlike his cousin, Hooded Oriole, who goes for citrus, he prefers grape jelly, if you're looking to give him a treat/reason to go to your backyard (again, sounds made up, but this is true).

A sweet boy
Gets excited and starts talking faster
People like to laugh at his jokes, not because they're funny, but because he is funny



So you're probably wondering who this Bullock is, right? I mean, you don't come to this blog because you don't care about the people birds are named after. So that means it's time for our most frequently-unread feature, Naturalist Corner! [the theme from Naturalist Corner plays]

 Sandra Bullock

(1964 - Present)

Sandra Bullock is an actress, producer, ornithologist, and philanthropist. She is best known for discovering this bird while filming Speed.

Ok, fine, that gag was not worth it. By the way, it's pretty hard to google up an image of 'drawing of Sandra Bullock' that doesn't give you a weird vibe.

William Bullock

(1773 - 1849)

While he's no Sandra Bullock, this guy had a pretty interesting life too. While he began his professional career as a goldsmith and jeweler, it wasn't long before he opened up an oddities and antiquities museum. Yup, this Oriole might as well be called Ripley's Birdlieve It or Not. Some of his collection was gathered from James Cook's expeditions, and include art and natural history objects. This exhibition was super popular in London. You know, #JustColonialismThings.

Not content to let the new world discoveries come to him, Bullock went on a couple of trips to Mexico and the United States to 1) gather specimens, 2) speculate on silver mining, and 3) make a failed attempt to start a utopian city called Hygeia. So basically, any naturalism was a pretty tertiary interest. He didn't even find this bird himself- it was officially described first by William Swainson, who in a classy move, named it after Bullock, saying that he 'drew on material' collected by him on one of these Mexico trips.

Allen's Hummingbird

Allen's Hummingbird
Point Molate Beach Park, Richmond, California, USA 
February 2018 
Member of the Hummingbird Family 
§A Tune of Hummingbirds§

~true bird facts~ Truly a feisty little guy, he gets very particular about his territory. He has been observed to chase much larger predators, up to and including hawks and kestrels, out of his area. Not only that, but male and female Allen's Hummingbirds live in completely different environments- men go to more open and visible areas, with the women coming and visiting to check out the mating dance of the males, before returning to the denser, more protected woodlands where they make their nests. We all need a little space sometimes. That mating dance, by the way, is an arcing pendulum motion followed by a 100 foot dive that is so fast that it actually allows him to make a chirping noise with his tail feathers. It's pretty cool (here's the Anna's version of it, couldn't find any good Allen's videos).

So, as all long-time readers will know, Hummingbirds are not actually birds, but rather bugs, robots, or bio-robotic organisms. Some research indicates that they might actually be arcane (magical) relics that have been activated by wizards or something. As such, we'll skip the personality section, as Hummingbirds don't have em'. But still, you might be wondering, who is Allen's Hummingbird named after- that's right, it's time for another Naturalist Profile!

Tim Allen

1953-202?

Tim Allen is a human actor, well known for his television shows and movies. The Allen's Hummingbird was actually created for an episode of his most famous and popular show, Tim Allen's Tool Time. In episode 07_18, Tim tinkers with nano-machines, electro-fields, and dark, ancient illustrations that his neighbor Wilson buys at an Illuminati auction to create the 'living' 'bird'. However, it is only after his son, Jonathan Taylor Thomas Allen, sneaks into his laboratory late at night, and properly aligns the crystal matrix, that the creature comes to life. Therefor, you could argue, that the naming convention applies to either or both Allens. The rest of the episode is spent in the zany antics of trying to prevent the hummingbird from reaching a source of argon gas, which it of course needs to reproduce. Obviously Allen was unsuccessful, and I'm thankful for it, since otherwise we wouldn't have these great hummingbirds today.

I know this is a lot of information that might be surprising (I never watched the show much, so I didn't know), but I got it directly from the Tim Allen wiki, which is very well-sourced.

Ok, so let's say that you don't want to know the #Truth about Hummingbirds, and instead want the mainstream media's alternative facts. Here's the guy they say discovered this alleged bird-

Charles Andrew Allen

1841 - 1930

There is virtually no information about Charles Allen on the internet- only this one picture (which is from a pdf of his obituary) and no wikipedia article, which is sad for someone who named this great hummingbird. He was born in Massachusetts, and his interest in birds started early, with a childhood friendship with a taxidermist, which isn't a weird thing to have at all. He held a variety of odd jobs- carpentry, fishing, civil war soldier-ing. Eventually the conditions in the furniture mill in which he worked caused him so many respiratory problems that he decided to move out to California. There he worked as kind of an early park ranger, and it was during this period of time that he collected bird and mammal specimens, which he sent to a colleague or friend for collection and classification. No information on whether or not he 'discovered' other birds, but it was his observation that led to the understanding that Rufous Hummingbirds were a different species from the above bird. He had 3 kids.

Golden-fronted Woodpecker

Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA
July 2017
Member of the Woodpecker Family
§Descent of Woodpeckers§

~true bird fact~ A species that is, in many ways, mid-evolution. Golden-fronted Woodpeckers in the northern part of their range have begun interbreeding with Red-bellied Woodpeckers and are starting to look, genetically speaking, more closely related to them. Meanwhile, southern Golden-fronteds (which are, ironically, less golden and more red), are starting to look more like they ought to be a separate species. Bizarrely, this bird was once considered 4 different species before its current taxonomic form. No word on what this confusion does to the bird's sense of identity and relationships with his fellow woodpeckers. We may have a Professor Sylvester McMonkey McBean Sneeches situation here.

Exasperated
Always has a feeling like he's forgotten something
Prefers cake to pie

Johann Georg Wagler

1800-1832

Originally named this bird (usual caveat- for Western audiences). He was a lecturer and the assistant of an apparently much more famous and significant German biologist, who I've also never heard of. That would be Johann Baptist von Spix, who was well known for his work collecting and identifying Brazilian plants and animals, but also did some anthropological work on the native peoples there. Our man Johann Georg here never did visit the Americans, but he did extensive work of combing through and organizing the collection, and writing books with the other Johann about his discoveries. He was honestly more of a reptile guy. He died at age 32 when he accidentally shot himself while out in the field.

Pyrrhuloxia

Pyrrhuloxia aka. Desert Cardinal
Big Bend Ranch State Park, Presidio, Texas, USA
July 2017
Member of the Cardinal Family
§A Radiance of Cardinals§

{Etymology Corner} So, that name, huh? As you might guess, it's origin is Greek. Pyrrhuloxia used to be part of it's scientific name, but fell out of favor I guess, when we moved to the standardized binomial system, replaced by the much drier Cardinalis sinuatus. Pyrrhuloxia is the combination of Pyrrhos (Reddish-Orangish) and Loxos (Oblique), referring to the color of the bird and the shape of its bill, respectively. Information that I could not find anywhere, however, was why on earth we are still calling this bird such a bizarre name, when Desert Cardinal is right there. It seems to fly in the face of convention, convenience, and standardization. What's your take on the name, reader? Charming? Baffling? Oh, and it's pronounced pir-uh-lok-see-uh.

~true bird fact~ Pyrrhuloxia have been observed using an inventive technique for surviving spiking desert temperatures. They hang out around houses with open doors or windows with their air-conditioning on. This behavior has been seen in several desert birds, including cactus wrens and loggerhead shrikes. Take that, people who say we've made the environment worse for birds!

Gives you the impression that he could do something absolutely insane without warning
Always knows how to deal with 'desert problems'
Sort of a fatalist

Surprises you with an artistic side on occasion

You know, maybe one factor that might explain his weird name is that he was first described (to Western audiences) by...

Charles Lucien Bonaparte

1803 - 1857

A real international type, Charles was born in Paris and raised in Italy. He was, in fact, the nephew of the most famous Bonaparte, Napoleon. He moved to the United States at age 19, having already discovered a new warbler in Italy, and was so big on bird-discovering that he found a new species of storm petrel on the trip over. During his time in the states, he worked on finding new birds, publishing accounts of them, and boosting for his buddy John James Audubon in equal measure. The edition of American Ornithology that he edited contained over a hundred** new species discovered* by him. All this in only 4 years, after which he returned to Europe.

He continued to work on the scientific classification of animals, but was also active politically, helping establish the Roman Republic and defend it from the armies of his cousin, Napoleon III. And the weird names? That was definitely a theme. He named a whole genus of doves after his wife, and a bird of paradise after the concept of the republic. All things considered, Pyrrhuloxia got off easy. He had 12 kids, and died at 54. Busy guy.

*- Author's note- I always find it a little bit conflictual to describe an animal as having been 'discovered' by some European guy, when in reality it existed among whatever indigenous populations lived in its area for centuries beforehand. We'll give Charles partial credit, given that he brought knowledge of these birds to a large audience and published accounts of them, which is still something. Assume the same caveat for future descriptions of 'discovered' birds.

**- AN2- Whenever something is described as 'over a hundred', I wonder exactly how many we're talking about. I assume it's something like 103, since if it were significantly higher, you'd just say the number, right?

Gambel's Quail

Gambel's Quail

Big Bend Ranch State Park, Presidio, Texas, USA
July 2017
Member of the New World Quail Family
§A Battery of Quails§

~true bird fact~ A bird suited to life in their home in the Sonoran Desert, these Quails have a life cycle that mimics the desert landscape that surrounds them. In exceptionally dry years, few chicks are born and they just kinda hang in there, but in years with a good wet season, they thrive and their numbers increase dramatically.

Constantly creates a dramatic soundtrack to his own life
Prefers to drink his meals when possible (smoothies, shakes, etc)
Easily becomes jealous of the success of others
Hates/fears bugs

William Gambel

1823 - 1849

Hometown- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He got his start in naturalism going on collecting trips with his mentor, the well-known Thomas Nuttall at the age of 15 (!). By18 he set off on his own, traveling all the way west to California, taking a more southerly route than previous expeditions had. His birding contributions include this Quail, Nuttall's Woodpecker, and the Mountain Chickadee. He was the first trained naturalist (well... let's say trained in the European tradition) to spend significant time in California. He continued to explore the American West until he died at age 26 from typhoid while crossing the Sierra Nevada. Couldn't find an image of young William, but below is his final resting place, Rose Bar on the Yuba River.