{"id":12019,"date":"2023-09-02T12:37:43","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T16:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=12019"},"modified":"2023-09-02T12:37:43","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T16:37:43","slug":"chitterwings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/02\/chitterwings\/","title":{"rendered":"Chitterwings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"796\" height=\"600\" src=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12020\" srcset=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image.png 796w, http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-300x226.png 300w, http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-768x579.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Noisy and colorful, the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/eastern-towhee-pipilo-erythrophthalmus\/\">eastern to<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/eastern-towhee-pipilo-erythrophthalmus\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/eastern-towhee-pipilo-erythrophthalmus\/\">wh<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/eastern-towhee-pipilo-erythrophthalmus\/\">ee<\/a> <\/strong>appears to have been a well-known bird to early European settlers in North America. Indeed, this big and conspicuous sparrow was the subject of one of the first bird paintings ever made by a European naturalist on this continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"341\" height=\"615\" src=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12021\" srcset=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-1.png 341w, http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-1-166x300.png 166w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 341px) 100vw, 341px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The caption to this copy of John White&#8217;s sixteenth-century watercolor reminds us just how many folk names, and in how many languages, this bird has had over the centuries. I was reminded of another one this morning\u2014one that I believe is attested in the writings of only one ornithologist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his manuscript list of the birds of Point Breeze, Charles Lucien Bonaparte calls the towhee &#8220;chitterwing.&#8221; On his return to Italy in 1827, he used the same name in the <em>Specchio comparative, <\/em>and it occurs again in the German-language reprint of that work in the 1834 volume of the <em>Isis von Oken<\/em>. In each instance, &#8220;chitterwing&#8221; is the only English name assigned the species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is very rare that a vernacular bird name turns out to be genuinely hapax in the ornithological corpus, but I think that this one is. Or have you run across it elsewhere? And if you have, what do you think its origin is?  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Noisy and colorful, the eastern towhee appears to have been a well-known bird to early European settlers in North America. Indeed, this big and conspicuous sparrow was the subject of one of the first bird paintings ever made by a European naturalist on this continent. The caption to this copy of John White&#8217;s sixteenth-century watercolor &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/02\/chitterwings\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Chitterwings&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[87,485,486],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12022,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12019\/revisions\/12022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}