X-rated Bob wrote
Sometimes things get named for what they look like. EG the various mousebirds - common on the Highveld. Nobody is saying that they are a bird with certain mouse features. From a distance they can be mistaken for a or likened to mice - grey, rapid movements along tree branches, long tail....
Ok. Pet peeve/rant/fury:
I
hate that they are trying to unify the common names of birds! Our plovers all becoming lapwings, and our darter an anhinga. FFFFFFUUUUUU!
That's why we have
scientific names! If you can't be arsed to learn the latin (which I mostly can't be) it's your own damn lookout. Don't tell me what to call birds. There is
no such thing as a Verreux's Eagle. It's a Black frikkin' Eagle. There is no "African" Penguin. It's a
Jackass Penguin (a wonderful, amusing, and descriptive name).
Frikkin' birders wouldn't know poetry if it hit them over the back of the head with a spotting scope. Some of the few beautiful bird names are now being wilfully changed -
to no purpose since they're already systematised by the scientific names. No doubt they'll call the Bataleur (a French word meaning, "acrobat," - how cool is that?) into a "Southern red-footed Snake-Eagle" or some such crap. To hell with them. I won't stand for it. And woe-betide any scunner who tells me, "actually, it's an
African Penguin now."
I think I may have to start using the Afrikaans names - which tended to be better in the first place (Slangvoel. Wit-kruis Arend, etc.). Strangely enough, no-one's messing with those.
[/rant]
