What's in a name?

I hope you enjoyed the holiday yesterday. We celebrated in our traditional fashion: a movie followed by dinner with friends at a Chinese restaurant. Now back to the birds.

This is a Cape May warbler, which I photographed in the Magee Marsh near Toledo, OH last May, where it and a few thousand other birds stop over each Spring on their way north for the summer. During the summer, it eats insects. But during its migration and during the winter, it uses its unique, curled and semi-tubular tongue to collect nectar. I used this shot for the month of January on my 2019 calendar.

If you think the bird got its name from Cape May, New Jersey, you’re right. The famed early American ornithologist Alexander Wilson first spotted this warbler in Cape May sometime in the early 19th century. No one saw another Cape May warbler in Cape May, NJ for the next 100 years. This could be why it’s not the state bird (that would be the goldfinch).

The bird world is full of stories about birds getting their names in a much less than scientific way. The magnolia warbler was also named by Alexander Wilson when he was first to see one. It happened to be in a Mississippi magnolia tree at the time, while on its migration. But that was a fluke; it primarily sticks to coniferous trees when it summers in Canada and the northern U.S.

Some other birds got their names because someone thought that’s what their song or call sounded like. Chickadee and towhee are two examples that come quickly to mind.

Of course, when you think about how some people get their names, maybe this isn’t so odd, after all.