Grimsayer

By Grimsayer

Birds' names and Snow Buntings

Today for some reason I've been thinking about birds' names and the fact that they are not very helpful, possibly with Tricia struggling with names as a fledgling birder - tee-hee.
Yesterday there were several Lapland Longspurs reported at Balranald and so not having seen one since last October off I trotted. In fact when I started birding many years ago they were called Lapland Bunting - many still do so. Worse still the ones on the Hebrides will never have been near Lapland, nor will they have little Reindeer antlers sticking out of their heads. They will have summered in Artic Greenland so why aren't they Greenland Buntings or perhaps Greenland Longspurs?
The RSPB have been trying hard to increase the number of Corn Buntings and at Balranald there are a lot of traditional corn "stooks" trying to attract them. Again there weren't any Corn Buntings but there were plenty of House Sparrows - not a house in sight so perhaps they were Corn Sparrows.
I did catch up with a Corn Bunting later sitting, as they always do, on a telegraph wire. Telegraph Buntings perhaps.
My faith in those who named birds was eventually restored at the end of the day. For the last five days a pair of Snow Buntings have taken up residence on Baleshare and I managed several photos today. The best is above. I could not think of a better name for this white Bunting that is always somewhere wild and remote and normally not far from snow. The white male above really is a spot of snow in the landscape.

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