Naming Birds: Calls, Color, Behavior, and More

Annie from Omaha, Nebraska, and her partner have been using the Merlin Bird ID app to study and identify birds. This makes them wonder how birds get their names and about the shorthand used to describe their calls. Bird-call mnemonics often use an initial stop consonant like P, T, or K, creating a sharp or abrupt sound rather than using softer, flowing continuants, such N, L, or R. Onomatopoetic names like pee-wee began to be codified with early versions of field guides, such as those by Roger Tory Peterson and David Alan Sibley, as well as the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of the United States and Canada by Ted Floyd (Bookshop|Amazon). In the 1970 children’s classic The Trumpet of the Swan (Bookshop|Amazon), writer E.B. White describes a white-throated sparrow singing Oh, sweet Canada, Canada, Canada!, but an earlier, widely used version was Oh Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody! Incidentally, the North American pee-wee, peewit, or pee-a-wee is different from the European pee-wee, also known as a lapwing. The North American pee-wee, on the other hand, is a tyrant flycatcher. How their calls are represented also depends on the phonetic inventory of the speaker’s language. For example, the pee-wee is known in German as a Kiebitz, in Dutch a kievit, and in Afrikaans as a kiewiet. This is part of a complete episode.