At this season, every eastern wood-pewee — like this on in Brookdale Park early yesterday morning — could be the last of the year at our latitude.
I’ve been birding long enough that the name seems “normal” to me, but new birders and non-birders find it amusing that there is a tiny bird named “pewee.” And so we explain: in the summer, this flycatcher sings its pee-a-wee over and over and over. Aha. Everything’s clear.
This isn’t the only explanation floating around for the name, though. Two hundred years ago, Louis-Pierre Vieillot had another theory:
The name “pewit” given to this bird by the Americans comes from the fact that when it ruffles the feathers of its head, it appears to be adorned with a sort of crest,
a crest distantly recalling that of the original pewit, the northern lapwing.
I suppose.
