Birdwatching With Children: How Birds Get Their Names

My husband and I planned, with great anticipation, a visit to Britain in September of 1997. As is always the case when we travel, we have been researching where we can and should go looking for birds once we arrive. Should we visit Cornwall, or Wales, or Scotland?

You know what we discovered when we were planning our trip? After a few e-mail conversations with new birding friends in Britain, it became obvious that we weren't talking the same language -- even though we were all speaking English. For example, one friend mentioned a good place to see Divers. Divers, I said? Like scuba divers? No, he said, and he gave me the Latin name of the bird he was talking about. I had to look it up in my bird guide, and it took a long time. He was talking about Loons! After a couple of more exchanges we learned that what we here in the U.S.A. call an Arctic Loon, they in Britain call a Black-throated Diver. What we call a Black Scoter, they call a Common Scotor. What we call a Mew Gull, they call a Common Gull. A Black-necked Grebe is an Eared Grebe. How will I ever get them straight? I decided to do some research on how birds get their names. I thought you might enjoy sharing what I learned, and what I learned would make an excellent lesson for children who love birds. I'll give you some basic information, and some tips for lesson plans, and you and your children can take it from there.

Remember the classifications of life? I memorized them in the fifth grade: "Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species." The two Kingdoms were Animals and Plants, then life forms were broken down from there. All birds are placed in the Class "Aves" (pronounced "a'vays). That's where my nickname comes from: "Aviella," which means "watcher of the birds." There are two different Orders in the Class Aves: Palaeognathae, which has four different Families of birds,, and Neognathae, which has the other twenty-four Families. All birds, no matter what their "common" name is, have one scientific name that places them in the proper classification: My friend in Britain may refer to a Common Gull, and I may refer to the same bird as a Mew Gull, but both of us are talking about "Larus canus" -- the scientific name for that bird.

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