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. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]