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  1. paranoid numanoid

    JAY ON SPARROWHAWK didn't get the memo?

    I was out walking near Annick Lodge in Ayrshire yesterday among the beeches and oaks, and saw a jay fly across an open space between the trees. Moments later a male sparrowhawk flew out from the same place and perched on a branch at the edge of the wood. A second jay suddenly attacked the...
  2. paranoid numanoid

    Swedish "vrak"

    I'm studying some place-names and there is a suggestion that a Swedish word "vrak" (with the circle above the a which I can't figure out! - sorry!) meaning (apparently) buzzard, has connotations of "strangling" or "pursuing". Could anyone shed any light on this word and what it means? Thank...
  3. paranoid numanoid

    Oxei, ox-eye

    Oxei (Turner, 1544) and ox-eye (many authors since!) serves as a vernacular name for the great tit. But it also refers to other birds which seem unrelated like the dunlin, ringed plover (I think), treecreeper etc. Is it an onomatopoeic name, primarily, do you think (as FO Morris' son thought)...
  4. paranoid numanoid

    soft ... as a catamite?

    I'm wondering about the etymology (and therefore the identity) of Aristotle's Greek malakokraneus, which William Turner (1544) translated into Latin as as molliceps, identifying it as a shrike. Malako- means soft (as a catamite, or boy, as it is apparently used in the Bible!), and kraneus...
  5. paranoid numanoid

    WHEN IS A PEWIT NOT A PEWIT?

    I'm looking into the etymology of puit, or puet, later pewit as a mainly Norfolk names for the black-headed gull. I have found some background on their eggs and young being harvested at colonies like Scoulton, and sold on the market (perhaps as lapwing or plovers' eggs?) Also, Alfred Newton...
  6. paranoid numanoid

    Did Gilbert White use binoculars?

    Sounds a daft question I know, but I'm trying to find out when "field glasses" became popular for nature observation, and I haven't quite pinned it down. I know the earliest patent application for a telescope and a binocular was 1608, (Jan Lippershey, state of Zeeland, Galilean type design) and...
  7. paranoid numanoid

    Rev Charles Swainson, MA: any news?

    I've been trying to find out more about the life of Rev Charles Swainson MA, rector of Old Charlton and author of The Provincial Names and Folk-lore of British Birds (1886) but have hit a bit of a wall. I know he was born in 1841 and passed away in 1913 but have no picture of him, or of his...
  8. paranoid numanoid

    Aberdevine.

    I've just found your great list of alternative bird names & nicknames, (from gropper to butterbutt!) ... I'm looking more deeply into the origins of birds' names now (so-called scientific names but mainly vernacular names) and have been researching names starting with Charles Swainson Provincial...
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