{"id":8703,"date":"2014-06-06T03:47:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T10:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=8703"},"modified":"2015-04-02T08:10:28","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T15:10:28","slug":"scrawlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/06\/scrawlers\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrawlers"},"content":{"rendered":"

As James and I work on our\u00a0new Birds and Art tour<\/a>, I’ve been putting in the odd moment learning the names of some of the many (very many!) birds we can hope to see in lovely Catalonia next April.<\/p>\n

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Yellowhammers<\/strong>, William MacGillivray<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Naturally, I started with my favorites, the emberizid buntings, and was startled to find several species of these best of all birds given one of the strangest of all names in Spanish:\u00a0escribano<\/em>, the copyist.<\/p>\n

With that name, these birds join the host of clerical fowl, from\u00a0lettered aracaris\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0secretary-birds\u00a0<\/strong>to, just perhaps,\u00a0prothonotary warblers<\/strong>. But what’s so literate about a bunting?<\/p>\n

The sources I have been able to run down all agree — both a good sign and bad, that — that the Spanish name, varied sometimes to “escribidora” or “escribiente,” refers to the irregular dark markings on the egg, which\u00a0resemble carelessly written letters and words<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Reed bunting<\/strong>\u00a0eggs, MNH Toulouse.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

And that stirs a dim memory, a memory confirmed with just a little sniffing around in the old books. In English, “writing bird,” “writing lark,” and “writing master” are all attested as names for the\u00a0yellowhammer\u00a0<\/strong>and the\u00a0corn bunting<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Corn<\/a><\/p>\n

In his 1875\u00a0Rambles and Adventures,\u00a0<\/em>George Christopher\u00a0Davies explains<\/a>\u00a0in no uncertain terms why: his energetic schoolboys<\/p>\n

found two or three larks’ nests and some yellowhammers’ or “writing masters,” as the country lads sometimes call them, from the scribblings on the egg shells.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ten years later, Charles\u00a0Swainson<\/a>\u00a0also listed the names “scribbling lark,” “\u00e9crivain,” and “schryver” for the yellowhammer, all of them due, he writes, to “the curious irregular lines on the egg, resembling writing.”\u00a0Swann<\/a>\u00a0adds “writing linnet” and “scribbler,” again “from the scribble-like markings on its eggs.”<\/p>\n

\"Lark<\/a><\/p>\n

Wonderings never come alone. Might this also be the explanation for the strange epithet of the\u00a0lark sparrow<\/strong>,\u00a0grammacus<\/em>? It’s a clever idea, but like so many other clever ideas, it doesn’t pan out at all. Thomas\u00a0Say’s original description<\/a>\u00a0of this “pretty species of sparrow” makes it plain that the eponymous\u00a0grammee,\u00a0<\/em>the “pen strokes,” are the heavy markings of the “lineated head” and, alas, have nothing to do with the sparrow’s eggs at all.
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See what you learn once you get started?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As James and I work on our\u00a0new Birds and Art tour, I’ve been putting in the odd moment learning the names of some of the many (very many!) birds we can hope to see in lovely Catalonia next April. Yellowhammers, William MacGillivray Naturally, I started with my favorites, the emberizid buntings, and was startled to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Scrawlers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8703"}],"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=8703"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9902,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8703\/revisions\/9902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}