Below are some images from recent trips. The Scarlet Macaw of Kirby Stephen and the
Puffin or Sea Parrot, of the Farne Islands.
The logic behind the naming of birds is not always easy to
follow. The Puffin of course gets its
vernacular name of Sea Parrot from
the nature of its bill. It’s common
English naming and scientific naming is a little more difficult to
understand. I took the following
information from Wikipedia……….
‘’The scientific name Fratercula
comes from the Medieval Latin fratercula, friar, a reference to the black
and white plumage which resembles monastic robes. The specific name arctica refers to the northerly
distribution of the bird, being derived from the Greek ‘arktos’, the bear, referring
to the northerly constellation, the Great Bear.
The vernacular name puffin – puffed in the sense of swollen – was originally
applied to the fatty, salted meat of young birds of the unrelated species Manx
Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) which
in 1652 was known as the ‘Manks Puffin’.
It is an Anglo-Norman word used for cured carcasses. The Atlantic Puffin aquired the name at a
much later stage, possibly because of its similar nesting habits, and it was formally
applied to Fratercula arctica by
Pennant in 1768’’
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