My Life’s Birds: #334
August 18, 1994 – Quivira NWR, Ks – When we returned to Quivira the next morning to scan the salt flats, did we spot a Black-bellied Plover or a Grey Plover? The plover undoubtedly had a black belly, though even that was flecked with gray as it slowly turned into its alter ego, the staid Clark Kent to it’s onyx-breasted, silvery-caped Superbird. It was at once both and either.
It’s with species like Pluvialis squaterola that we as birders are faced with the arbitrary nature of bird common names. The strangeness with which we occasionally fetishize them as much as the birds themselves. After all, a bird’s name on a day list conjures up pleasant memories as much as the same bird’s name as a gap left unticked can inspire disappointment. Do I want to see the Black-bellied Plover, or do I want to add its name to my list? Ultimately it’s both.
The bird is, per usual, completely unaware of the existential questions surrounding its identity, it merely forages on the salt pan. Be it Grey or Black-bellied or whatever, the bird was fresh from a red-eye from the tundra bound for some beachfront somewhere in parts far south. It clearly had better things to do. But we saw it and called it Black-bellied Plover, even if it would be Grey soon enough, and added it to our lists.
The bird didn’t care.
photo from wikipedia
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Just the very bird (one of many shorebirds) I hope to find today. Your posting may be a good luck charm.
Nate, in German they are called "Lapwing Plover" or rather "Lapwing rain whistler".
I tell you, their names will captivate us eternally, just like the birds themselves do.
@nishiki- Good luck!
@Jochen- If Grey Plover is called Lapwing Plover, what do Germans call the Lapwing?
Is this as confusing as your gull names?
No, thankfully it is not as confusing. We call the lapwing after its call (what is that terrible latin word again?):
"Kiebitz" which is pronounced
"Key-bitz"
Its call sounds more like cue-vitt to my ear, but I suppose kiebitz is good enough. And a nice bird, too.