You are browsing the archives of Terminology.

When a pelagic trip is short of great new birds to watch there is almost always the chum scrum to entertain the despondent birder.  The chum scrum is the gang of birds, usually made up of gulls plus whatever else is in the vicinity, that follows the boat snapping up the food being thrown off [...]

The concept that bird watchers can accurately identify birds by their general aspect and behavior rather than by any specific field marks has not only long been accepted, but is actually gaining greater popularity every year. One might debate just how useful or specific this methodology may be, but all agree on its overall utility. [...]

This past Monday I was running around with my son in my backyard after work.  We were doing the regular stuff; waiting for the mail truck, pointing at city buses, running hap-haphazardly across the lawn and up into neighbors patios.  I can’t help it, there’s just so much interesting stuff up there.  I chanced to [...]

When a birder sees a really, really, good bird and another birder doesn’t see the bird, the first birder will often “grip off” the other birder.  This is a process whereby the birder who failed to see the bird is reminded of having missed the bird in any way imaginable.  For example, let’s say that [...]

A bird’s crop is an expandable “muscular pouch near the gullet or throat.”  It is used to store excess food for later digestion.  Essentially an extension of the esophagus, the crop can expand a rather remarkable amount, to the point where it can make a small-headed, long-necked bird look like a big-headed, short-necked bird (because [...]

I was recently reading a rather vitriolic comment thread on a blog post related to carbon dioxide and global warming and came across references to the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which people who made what seemed to me like outlandish statements about climatology while admitting that they had no formal training in any related field were [...]

Birds seem to be popping up everywhere in trivia these days. Just yesterday, I was listening to a quiz show on NPR when the host asked a really thought-provoking question: does it take birds longer to fly south for winter or return north in spring? Consider the answer and, if you’d like, share your guess [...]

Like every other specialized activity, the noble pursuit of bird watching has accumulated its own collection of jargon, slang, and scientific vocabulary. Fortunately, there’s not too much to learn. If we all pull together, pretty soon we’ll be talking like the pros. What is pishing? One of the most important and perhaps inscrutable words in [...]

We erroneously dubbed the Northern Bobwhite we recently spotted at Bombay Hook our first gallinaceous bird. It is correct that the northern bobwhite is gallinaceous, but so are the Wild Turkey, Ocellated Turkey, Willow Ptarmigan, Spruce Grouse, Plain Chachalaca, and Crested Guan, which are also on our list. It is more accurate to say that [...]