Laura, et al:
The folklore of bird name colloquialisms is fascinating to say the least. And oh Laura, to address this one is stepping in a real pile of you-know-what. Shy-poke is a slightly dressed up version of "shit-poke" (Hey, now! Do you all want to be informed, or be offended and remain blissfully ignorant? We're getting real here.) Anyway, "s__t poke" translates to "bag of s__t", a name given to green herons for their habit of "letting loose" as they take off when flushed as if they were full of it and need to lighten their load to take flight.
I would second your nomination of the American Woodcock for having not only the most, but the wildest, strangest, kookiest, coolest, colloquial names applied to them. I always thought that "rain crow" for yellow (and probably black)-billed cuckoos was cool as is "yellow hammer" for the once-known-as yellow-shafted flicker (aka: Northern flicker).
Anybody else have any good ones?
Dan Best
On Jul 17, 2013, at 12:00 PM, Laura Dornan wrote:
> This morning Tim & I went to watch our local Osprey nest and while we had the scope lined up on the nest on the top of the cell tower, a neighbor lady came out to see what we were looking at. She asked if we were looking at a "shy-poke". We told her we were looking at Ospreys and then asked what the heck is a shy-poke? We had never heard that name. She replied it is a crane, by which we figured she actually meant a Great Blue Heron. A lot of people around here call herons cranes. When we asked where she had learned that name, she said from her husband who was in the military and traveled around a lot. So goodness knows where the name might be colloquial to. Has anyone ever heard that name in reference to herons (or any other bird).
>
> Thinking about where the name shy-poke came from got me to thinking about all the other weird names some birds have. The 1st that come to mind are the myriad names for the Woodcock: timberdoodle, bog sucker, mud bat, blind snipe, night partridge, & my favorite, Labrador twister. Then there are lots of ducks that have colloquial nick-names, though I can only think of 2 right now: baldpate for Am. Wigeon and butterball for Ruddy Duck.
>
> Does anyone know some other weird and funny names for birds? I think I will start a "collection".
>
> Laura Dornan
> Louisville, Stark Co.
>
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