Fortunately for the emperor penguin, it is not named after any specific emperor.
posted by box at 12:50 PM on November 3, 2023 [20 favorites]

The Not A Sharpshinned Hawk But Totally Looks Like One Hawk? I can dig it.

Local Audubon chapters are also changing their names to get rid of the Audubon. I hope that filters upstairs eventually.
posted by humbug at 12:52 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Bird Formerly Known As Prince
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:56 PM on November 3, 2023 [16 favorites]

Darn, they didn't take my suggestion to just insert "the traitor" in front of each Confederate name. Still works though.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:59 PM on November 3, 2023 [22 favorites]

baru cormorant wants a word
posted by lalochezia at 1:03 PM on November 3, 2023 [12 favorites]

I am quite pleased by this decision--not least because, well, eponyms are a pain in the ass to learn and remember relative to more descriptive names.
posted by sciatrix at 1:04 PM on November 3, 2023 [15 favorites]

The article about this in the NYTimes had some really nice quotes from people involved about how their opinions shifted through the process of listening and learning from each other, with a number of people who started very opposed shifting to supportive as things went along.
posted by Dip Flash at 1:04 PM on November 3, 2023 [11 favorites]

Bit of a derail, but seeing the Sibley guide cited above reminded me of a CBS Sunday Morning piece a few years ago on the illustrator, David Sibley. It was lovely, well worth the six minutes of your time if you like birds and gentle people.
posted by martin q blank at 1:18 PM on November 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

Spotted a Cooper's hawk the other day stalking some of the seed finches rumbling around my trees. A bunch of these names I know their crimes, but I couldn't find anything on Cooper himself. What hath he wrought?
posted by drewbage1847 at 1:20 PM on November 3, 2023

This is great news. I saw a headline this morning but didn't click through, figuring it was just about Audubon, not realizing it was about ALL the eponyms. Having read some of your excellently curated links, I am really glad to know so much more about this transition, the people behind it, and the thoughtful work that's going into the various shifts. (I enjoyed the piece by the Golden Gate Bird Alliance - a great example of collaboration and transparency.)

In the Cornell piece, Pam Rasmussen says, "There are going to be people who are sad to see the names that they’ve grown up with, or the names that they’ve learned and used for many years, be changed," and of course that's true, but also part of life - streets get renamed, for example, and hugely influential companies change their names, and that can take some getting used to, but the change ripples through the world faster than we expect. (And anyone with a stubborn fondness for an old name can always keep using it in their head.)

I think this is wonderful, for so many reasons - inclusivity, especially, but also just more descriptive names. I'm looking forward to learning the new name for one of my favorite birds, Steller's Jays, and to not having to re-check the spelling every time I write it, heh.

(Also, for anyone overwhelmed by a ton of new names, I recommend my beginner technique for naming birds.)

Thank you so much for this great, thoughtfully assembled post, gingerbeer!
posted by kristi at 1:38 PM on November 3, 2023 [9 favorites]

Why not just number them sequentially?
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:39 PM on November 3, 2023 [12 favorites]

I was wondering the same thing about Cooper after I made this post. Cooper isn't on the Bird Names for Birds list. Fortunately I live in a house with a lot of bird books. Weidensaul's Raptor Almanac to the rescue: "Named in 1828 for New York ornithologist William Cooper, who collected a specimen of this accipiter for French-born colleague Charles Lucien Bonaparte. "
posted by gingerbeer at 1:40 PM on November 3, 2023

Names like "Satanic nightjar" still gets a pass under the new system, though, yes? Because otherwise I would like a word..
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:41 PM on November 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

Why not just number them sequentially?

Sorted by birdliness!
posted by aubilenon at 1:41 PM on November 3, 2023 [16 favorites]

I saw this news and I think it is great. Bird people are making a real effort to be more inclusive in a lot of ways and it is super valuable.

One of my pet causes has been to rename Caribbean birds to what Caribbean people call them. Like, AOS calls a bird the Imperial Parrot, when the actual people on the only island in the world where it lives call it the Sisserou. Of course, there are always different names in different places, but utilizing the local names for single-island endemics should be an obvious choice.
posted by snofoam at 1:43 PM on November 3, 2023 [28 favorites]

Merlin app: Hitler Sparrow sighing with relief.
posted by Chocolate Sandwich at 1:44 PM on November 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

I’m all for this but how will it affect future editions of Wingspan? Because that is where pretty much everything I know about non-crow birds comes from.
posted by Mizu at 1:46 PM on November 3, 2023 [11 favorites]

> how will it affect future editions of Wingspan?

Right? The whole Historian goal is right out the window. I did enjoy sending this news to my regular Wingspan opponent.
posted by gingerbeer at 1:49 PM on November 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

That's another excellent reason for just sticking to Linnaean binomers. That way, the AOS can communicate with birders from Bolivia and Hungary and know they are talking about the same thing. One of the conventions in the world of naming species is _priority_ an older name is preferred when, for example two species are discovered to be inter-fertile and the 2 taxa merged under a single name. I daresay, this new convention can be built into the naming-of-parts decision making process.

Of course loadsa Latin birds are eponymous. Megascops koepckeae, Phaethornis koepkeae and Cacicus koepckeae are all named after Maria Köpcke who featured in Werner Herzog's Wings of Hope.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:50 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Spotted a Cooper's hawk the other day stalking some of the seed finches rumbling around my trees. A bunch of these names I know their crimes, but I couldn't find anything on Cooper himself. What hath he wrought?

Well, if it was named after James Fenimore Cooper, his historically first American bestseller The Pioneers includes a really disgusting long and repellantly detailed segment describing an episode of the senseless slaughter of the now extinct Passenger Pigeon, which once had a population I’ve seen estimated as above a billion, so perhaps he would deserve to lose that distinction.

My problem is, however, that I can’t remember or probably even judge if I reread it whether Cooper intended it to be disgusting or not, which neatly replicates the dilemma the AOS decided to obviate by eliminating all eponyms, I guess.
posted by jamjam at 2:02 PM on November 3, 2023

George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early Audubon Society in the late 1800s[...]

They had a better name for the society right there.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:02 PM on November 3, 2023 [10 favorites]

"Eponymous warbler" has a nice ring to it.
posted by eponym at 3:00 PM on November 3, 2023 [9 favorites]

No gods, no masters, no birds named after racists.
posted by goatdog at 3:02 PM on November 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

> "Eponymous warbler" has a nice ring to it., posted by eponym.

Eaten by an Eponysterical Hawk, surely.
posted by gingerbeer at 3:16 PM on November 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

Someone call a Taxonomist!
posted by djseafood at 3:19 PM on November 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

As a person who maintains some bird related software, I am both overjoyed and looking forward somewhat ruefully to the database update.

It's actually not that bad, though, from a data management perspective. There are already at least three separate bird taxonomies, all of which disagree at least a bit, making conversations a bit of a nightmare. The two big taxonomies (ioc and Clement's) update once or twice a year, splitting subspecies, merging species, or sometimes just changing Latin spellings of the scientific names. (Splits in particular make it "fun" to track old observations...) So by comparison to the usual updates, just changing a bunch of names is easy.

(I am also reminded of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology fish specimen collection, which consists of four linear miles of shelf space filled with jars of preserved fish, eels, etc. Moving anything creates a chance to break things, so they typically let taxonomic changes accumulate for twenty years or so before reorganizing the shelves.)
posted by kaibutsu at 3:22 PM on November 3, 2023 [12 favorites]

We should call them by the names they themselves use.
posted by bbrown at 3:29 PM on November 3, 2023 [17 favorites]

Not-a-sharp-shinned-but-the-other-kind Hawk
posted by Quasirandom at 3:29 PM on November 3, 2023

are we Counting Crows?
posted by clavdivs at 3:32 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Very charming to see the gusto with which this is taking place - when something similar happened in the fungi world some years back (a UK common name was switched out for a less offensive one, "jelly ear" for "Judas'/Jew's ear"), boy was there anguish and slippery-slope alerts galore...

Of course, there are always different names in different places, but utilizing the local names for single-island endemics should be an obvious choice

Not every language, it turns out, maintains a list of "official" common names for species - in fungi, for example, it's really only the UK/US, Germany and Holland, I believe, whereas in many countries there are multiple regional vernaculars for the same species, and no institution who might canonize any specific one over another. Names of things will sometimes escape easy schematizing, and require multilocal knowing.

another excellent reason for just sticking to Linnaean binomers [...] Of course loadsa Latin birds are eponymous.

Interestingly, the push to jettison eponyms has reached binomials, too. (Indeed, some find the jelly ear fungus a candidate for binomial revision to go with its common name update.)

It's all a complex issue that calls the foundations of nomenclature (and its cardinal rule: stability above all else) into question, and raises all kinds of fine points that usually remain unnoticed. I'm all for it.
posted by progosk at 3:34 PM on November 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

In Bird culture, being named after a human is considered a dick move.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:38 PM on November 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have always struggled with names that didn't specifically reference an attribute of the bird. Killdeer? Yes. Wren? Right out.
posted by rebent at 3:41 PM on November 3, 2023

Sibley himself with a video comment.

And from the inimitable birdchick:
"For those who are panicking about bird name changes and feel the need to comment that we are "erasing history" and that this won't help anyone...I'd like to remind you of some name changes you have survived:
Sharp-shinned hawk to sharpies.
Yellow-rumped warblers to butter butts.
Bird to birb or borb.
Snakes to snek or danger noodles.
Raccoons to trash pandas.
Skunk to fart squirrel.
Timberdoodle to wood cock.
Thunderpumper to bittern.
Shitepoke for just about any heron.
Bullbat and goatsucker for nighthawks.
You will survive this and this is a good thing.
#BirdNameForBirds"
posted by gingerbeer at 3:47 PM on November 3, 2023 [11 favorites]

I’m all for this but how will it affect future editions of Wingspan?

The designer posted on Bluesky to the effect that she fully supports the changes, and once the name changes have actually occurred they will look at any needed revisions to the game. She notes that the updated names would likely have little mechanical impact on the game, other than retiring the Historian bonus card (points for birds named after people; that card was already phased out in the Wingspan Asia expansion anyway) and maybe addressing the balance of other name-based bonus cards depending on what the new names are.

I also support this move and it has been really interesting to watch as a botanist - while we do have the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature governing the scientific (Latin) names, there isn't an authority for common names in the way that the bird folks have. (For one thing there's way too many plants.) There's been individual grassroots efforts to change various common names (see an oft-used questionable common name for Tradescantia, or changing "Indian pipe" to "ghost pipe"), and various botanical organizations may have lists of the common names they use (like USDA Plants), but there's not really a governing body.
posted by erolls at 4:59 PM on November 3, 2023 [9 favorites]

I've always thought of the Wilson's Warbler as the Hitler Warbler so I guess neither are acceptable now.
posted by srboisvert at 5:09 PM on November 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

This change makes a lot of sense, but I do have a soft spot for Thomas Bewick, the Northumbrian wood-engraver who had a wren named after him. The illustrations in his History of British Birds are wonderful. Not just the birds but the tiny vignettes as well.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 5:17 PM on November 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

George Steller was a remarkable naturalist and I do wish his namesake Jay could retain its name. God knows, it’s taken years to educate FB Pacific Northwest Birding that my favorite corvid is a Steller's Jay and not a Stellar Jay and now perhaps it will be the former after all. Either that or rename the Blue Jay the Junior Blue Jay because Steller's Jays are bigger, bluer and Jayier. No Jay has more beau coup personality. But will it remain scientifically Latin named as Cyanocitta stelleri? That is another question.
posted by y2karl at 5:23 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Steller's Jay is my fave bird. Hopefully it gets a stellar name
posted by AngelWuff at 6:02 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

All jays are stellar. #teamcorvid
posted by mollweide at 6:19 PM on November 3, 2023 [8 favorites]

I just want Wilson's Warbler to become Wigged Warbler (Toupeed Warbler would also be acceptable if they don't want to keep the alliteration).
posted by snaw at 6:20 PM on November 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Well they already have a scrub tier, maybe Stellars is the S-tier
posted by Carillon at 6:27 PM on November 3, 2023

As long as they're renaming species to avoid metaphorical milkshake ducks, surely this frees up some waterfowl to officially become Milkshake Duck.
posted by cheshyre at 6:39 PM on November 3, 2023 [9 favorites]

Steller's Jay is my fave bird. Hopefully it gets a stellar name

Can we rename Steller’s sea eagle to like “supermassive black hole sea eagle” or something? Because damn, I saw one of those in a tiny cage once in a misbegotten zoo and I swear to god I thought it was gonna bust out of those iron bars and eat us all.
posted by eirias at 7:05 PM on November 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

They are a piece of bird indeed.
posted by y2karl at 7:14 PM on November 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

I hope major Mitchell's cockatoo gets a more descriptive and fitting name.

Why don't they do this for all colonized places? New Zealand and many of the larger islands of the Pacific really need more fitting names too. All of the bird names that references places on the other side of the world need fixing too. New Holland honeyeater etc. seems 100% ridiculous.
posted by RuvaBlue at 7:34 PM on November 3, 2023 [5 favorites]

I originally thought that someone had figured out bird language, and we'd be naming the birds what they call themselves. A little disappointed that isn't the case.
posted by blnkfrnk at 8:39 PM on November 3, 2023

That was my first thought, too--Steller's jays. I love them so much. I wonder if we can petition for stellar jay. They must be reasonable people, right? They'd have to see the efficacy and sense in that?
posted by kitten kaboodle at 8:53 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

What’s the process for all the new naming? one wonders without clicking the links.

Hopefully not a popular vote. They all can't be Birdy McBeakface. That would be impractical.

Reads a couple of the linked articles.

Aha:

“Scientists [should be on the [naming] committee] for sure, because we need their expertise,” she says, adding that the effort also needs to “call on people who are not normally involved in bird names.” The recommendations to the AOS Council called for new standing committee members who represent broad experiences and relationships with birds and their names, such as nonscientist birders, birding guides, naturalists, artists, and poets

Sounds good

—as well as opportunities for public input, so anybody can suggest and provide feedback about possible new common names.

Uh oh.
posted by notyou at 8:54 PM on November 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

Stellar’s Jays are wonderful… in moderation.

You get more than four or five of them together, and your campout is ruined.
posted by notyou at 8:57 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

That'll be Birdy McBirdFace and variants thereof, for sure.
posted by bbrown at 8:57 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Maybe we can name one the Milkshake Duck 🦆
posted by rebent at 9:46 PM on November 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Thankfully they will always be LBBs.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:35 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Boaty has done so much for public awareness of, and adoration for, boats. Birds deserve love too. I am all here for Birdy McBirdbeak for the conservation dollars it will drive.
posted by Callisto Prime at 10:37 PM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Did you know that the chickadee word for 'human' is 'chickadee?' It's an onomonopaeic expression of the most common sound that humans are observed to make by chickadee ecologists.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:03 AM on November 4, 2023 [9 favorites]

aubilenon: Sorted by birdliness!

hippybear: By a team at Rolling Stone!

Don't hold your breath, they are arguing over whether the Eternal Liver-Eating Eagle of Prometheus is in the same canon as Sisyphus' Rolling Stone, and whether that should boost its ranking.
posted by k3ninho at 1:06 AM on November 4, 2023

When they've cleaned the nest of actual named people, AOS can make a sweep of anthropomorphic names: 👁Cardinal 👁 . . . Secretary bird, Butcher bird, Kingfisher
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:39 AM on November 4, 2023

Puffins should be renamed because they never puff. And seagulls are everywhere; maybe Fry Thief Bird?
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:31 AM on November 4, 2023

I've had my National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America for over 30 years. My notes about where and when I've seen various species have made it a kind of journal filled with memories of good trips and even better friends. And you know what? If getting rid of names "honoring" terrible people means that more people get to enjoy years of learning about birds, I am all for it. I can get a new book — or, you know, join the 21st century and start using an app.
posted by mcduff at 6:56 AM on November 4, 2023 [4 favorites]

The comments on that National Review article are hilarious:

The funny thing is they scream the reason is racism, yet this action, given which types of names are most likely to be erased, drips with racism.

Like they can't make the connection that the only reason they can make their bogus reverse racism claim is entrenched racism/sexism that allowed the current naming.
posted by Mitheral at 9:27 AM on November 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

They can't, though - unless they're arguing that the American Ornithological Society has been taken over by minority groups. A lot of "reverse racism" claims end up being complaints about a new generation of white people who just have different opinions about minorities rising to the decision making point of an organization.
posted by Selena777 at 9:42 AM on November 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Great post! I just met rtha once, they got me into birding.

Based on some story I read about Feynman and his dad, I decided not to tell my then 5 year old daughter the “official” names of birds and insects, but to instead observe them and come up with a descriptive name.

Our backyard is visited every year by Reds, Big Reds, Small Reds, Yellow Fighters, Yellow Happies, Fluffie Cuties, Bad Birds, Noise Birds, Scream Birds, Parrots, Flower Unicorns, Purple Flower Unicorns, Boring Birds, Poopy Birds, Yucky Grub Eaters, Yucky Worm Eaters (Grubs are not worms! she will yell) The Friends Of The One That The Dogs Killed, Mud Birds, and showing powers of observation beyond her years, pigeons are Stupid Stupids.

For years raptors had a very very long name that she would say in full every time as in “I saw One Of The Birds That Eat Bunnies But They Are Not Bad They Just Need To Feed Their Babies And If They Could They Would Eat Fruits And Only Bunnies That Were About To Die Soon that had big yellow claws and was crying”

I would love common names that contain the answers to te questions that the birding apps have: Cream Chested Yellow Winged Midday Fence Post Sitting Insect Eater”.
posted by Dr. Curare at 10:32 AM on November 4, 2023 [17 favorites]

instead observe them and come up with a descriptive name

A suggestion from mycologist A. Pouliot, writing about vernacular names to attribute to Australian mushrooms (where there is often additionally a layered issue regarding prior Indigenous knowledge about fungi) still being described, is, where Indigenous names are lost, to consider the species' ecological role, what the species do, rather than just a physical or subjective description, as part of their common names. Might be a nice consideration to add into the mix of new bird names, too.
posted by progosk at 10:54 AM on November 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

I hope major Mitchell's cockatoo gets a more descriptive and fitting name.

How about the Pink cockatoo?
posted by onya at 11:20 AM on November 4, 2023

For years raptors had a very very long name that she would say in full every time as in “I saw One Of The Birds That Eat Bunnies But They Are Not Bad They Just Need To Feed Their Babies And If They Could They Would Eat Fruits And Only Bunnies That Were About To Die Soon that had big yellow claws and was crying”

She is not far off from the system of polynomial nomenclature that was in use before Linneaus proposed the binomial system. For instance, one long-form name in Species Plantarum for Agave americana was Agave foliis dentato-spinosis scapo ramoso (see partway down this page), broadly "the agave with the spiny-toothed leaves and the branched stem".
posted by erolls at 12:21 PM on November 4, 2023

In Bird culture, being named after a human is considered a dick move.

"Christ, what a cloaca."
posted by zippy at 2:14 PM on November 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Sibley himself with a video comment.

I don't think someone who is going to get to sell a fuckton of new editions of bird guides is exactly a disinterested expert.

Not that I think renaming birds is wrong. While we are at could we also fix the egregiously inaccurate bird names like Savannah Sparrow, which is neither a savannah bird nor a pole dancer. Nashville, Tennessee warblers as well. Maybe also fix the ones that have names dependent on invisible or rarely visible features too... like Ring-necked Ducks, Orange-crowned Warblers and Red-bellied Sapsucker.

I believe about 80% of bird names are either wrong, inaccurate, useless or misleading.
posted by srboisvert at 2:25 PM on November 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Hope they aren't planning on changing Chuck-will's-widow. Pure onomatopoeia if you've heard it in the wild.
posted by achrise at 2:41 PM on November 4, 2023