Taxonomy Haven

A female Whinchat - accompanied by four Wheatears - was the high point of a morning stroll along the banks of the Gowges at Thorton-le-moors.

Plenty of butterflies enjoying the sunshine with six species on the wing by my amateurish reckoning: Small White, Green-veined White, Large White, Orange-tipped, Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell.

Some green-coloured Damselflies had also emerged, and only a guess again, but probably female Banded Demoiselles.

The long term resident pale phase Common Buzzard was present and in an interesting twist, so too was an extremely dark bird that did its best to impersonate a dark-phase Changeable Hawk Eagle – probably my third favourite bird name after the sinister Dark Chanting Goshawk and every scrabblist's wet dream - the Satyr Tragopan.

Hawk Eagles are a good example of the rather lazy attempts the Victorian naturalists adopted in relation to Indian bird taxonomy. If ‘new’ bird resembled two others, then rather than inventing an original name, one was forged by concatenating the names of the two species the bird most resembled.

Clearly, in their eyes, most birds looked like either Wrens, Cuckoos or Shrikes as we are now left with Wren Babblers, Shrike Babblers, Flycatcher Shrikes, Cuckoo Shrikes and Cuckoo Drongos - not to mention the Hawk Eagles.

As for Tragopan, I’ve no idea where that name originates from, but I am reliably informed that ‘trago pan’ translates as ‘to swallow bread’ in Spanish – go figure.

Gowy Meadows CWT 01.05.10

Whinchat 1
Wheatear 4
Kestrel 2
Stonechat 2
Grey Heron 1

Until later.