Language - The Lonesome Whip-poor-will

Can ChatGPT Get Anything Right about Birds?

I asked ChatGPT to create a list of 5 birds named after their songs. The chatbot went 0 for 5. What went wrong?

Photo of a Northern Cardinal, who does not sing his name. — **Northern Cardinal**. He does not sing his name. Photo by Ahmer Kalam on Unsplash

Worried about ChatGpt? Not me. (At least not yet.) I previously asked the popular chatbot to explain the Whip-poor-will’s name, and it made the same mistakes of 18th century ornithologists. Now, I’ve asked ChatGPT to “Write a blog post about 5 U.S. birds who are named after their song or call.” It offered me this list of birds who definitely don’t sing their name.

Five Remarkable Birds Who Sing Their Names, according to ChatGPT.

Birds are one of nature’s most beautiful and melodious creatures. From their brightly colored feathers to their sweet songs, they are a delight to watch and listen to. In the United States, many species of birds are named after their distinctive songs or calls, making it easier for us to identify them. Here are five such birds and their fascinating stories.

Eastern Bluebird: This beautiful blue bird is known for its cheerful “cheer, cheer, cheer” song. It is a common bird in the eastern United States and is often seen perched on fence posts or trees. Eastern Bluebirds are a symbol of happiness and hope, and their sweet songs can brighten up even the dreariest of days.
Wood Thrush: This bird is easily recognizable by its beautiful, flute-like song that echoes through the woods. The Wood Thrush’s song is considered one of the most beautiful in North America and is often described as a rich and melodious “ee-oh-lay”. These birds are found in deciduous forests across the eastern United States and migrate to Central America for the winter.
Northern Cardinal: The Northern Cardinal is one of the most recognizable birds in the United States, with its distinctive red feathers and sweet whistle-like song. The male cardinal’s song is a series of clear, sharp “cheer-cheer-cheer” notes, which can be heard year-round. This bird is a common sight in gardens, parks, and woodlands across the eastern United States and is a popular bird with birdwatchers.
Tufted Titmouse: This small, acrobatic bird is known for its unmistakable “peter-peter-peter” call. The Tufted Titmouse is a common bird in deciduous forests in the eastern United States and is easily recognizable by its distinctive crest of feathers on its head. These birds are often seen flitting about in the treetops, diving into bushes, and hanging upside down in search of food.
American Robin: The American Robin is one of the first birds to arrive in the spring, signaling the arrival of warm weather. These birds are known for their cheerful “cheer up, cheerily” song and are easily recognizable by their distinctive reddish-orange breast. American Robins are found across North America and are a common sight in gardens, parks, and woodlands.

Photo of an American Robin, a bird who sings his name according to ChatGPT. The robin doesn't. — American Robin, who also doesn’t sing his name. Photo by Trac Vu on Unsplash

In conclusion, these five U.S. birds are a testament to the beauty and diversity of nature. From the Eastern Bluebird’s cheerful call to the Wood Thrush’s flute-like song, these birds remind us of the magic of the great outdoors. So next time you’re out on a hike or in your backyard, take a moment to listen for these birds and enjoy their enchanting melodies.

What Went Wrong?

We got off to a good start. The chatbot recognizes that there are indeed birds named for their songs.

Unfortunately, the list offers only the most popular and common eastern U.S. birds. Four of the five have well-known songs that can be translated into English — either with words, “Cheer up, cheerily,” or through approximation, “ee-oh-lay.” But clearly none of these birds is named after their song. The Wood Thrush does not sing “Wood Thrush.” The Norther Cardinal doesn’t call “Car-din-al.” The chatbot entirely missed the distinction between having a song that can be translated into words and those whose name is a translation of their song.

ChatGPT also attributed the Cardinal’s song to the Bluebird. Bluebirds are famous for singing. We can thank Disney for this. But bluebirds are not, from the human perspective, remarkable singers. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes their song like this and not as “cheer, cheer, cheer”:

a fairly low-pitched, warbling song made up of several phrases, each consisting of 1-3 short notes. Harsher chattering notes may be interspersed with the whistles.

5 More Remarkable Birds Named After Their Songs

Let’s try again, but with a human writer.

Photo of a Black-capped Chickadee. — A Black-capped Chickadee, who indeed sings their name. Photo by Bryan Hanson on Unsplash

Chickadees. Chickadees are remarkably intelligent, social, and vocal birds. Often, they don’t vocalize their names. So it can be easy to forget that chickadees take their name from their “chick-a-dee” call. Research suggests that they vary the call, encoding messages in it. Remarkably, their messages convey information about predators, such as the size or speed of the threat.
Eastern Towhee. Not all towhees call their name. But the Eastern Towhee is said to. The Eastern Towhee’s song has been translated into English as both “drink-your-teeaaa” and “to-wheeeee.” Only one of those is suited for a bird name, I suppose. The Eastern Towhee has also been given a name after their call: “Chewink.”
Eastern Phoebe. Not all phoebes call their name. (Are you sensing a pattern? As European naturalists first encountered eastern North American birds, the continents other birds received hand-me-down names.) A common bird around homes and other structures, Eastern Phoebes indeed seem to rasp Phoebe’s name.
Bobwhite. No longer widely known by U.S. Americans, Northern Bobwhites were once a staple of popular culture, known for their ability to whistle the English name, “Bob White.” Apparently, everyone knew the bird. Or at least this is what Connee Boswell and Bing Crosby banked on when they sang, “Bob White (Whatcha Gonna Swing Tonight).”
The Wills. Four Northern American Nightjars are said to sing the name “Will“: the Eastern and Western Whip-poor-wills, Chuck Will’s Widow, and the Common Poorwill. Odd thing that these birds would all learn the name of an Englishman. But they did, and all through North America our summer nights fill with Wills.

Featured Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash

5 Remarkable Spanish Bird Names Every Birder Should Know

Our names for birds reveal how we think about them. We can see ever more when we look across languages.

The names we call animals reveal how we think about other species. With birds, they can tell us what we see or hear when we encounter them. These Spanish names might just change how English language birders think about 5 familiar birds.

Eastern Meadowlark, or “Pradero Tortillaconchile”

Meadowlark is a suitable name, at least for poetry of it. But what’s a lark to begin with? And what does our grassland bird have to do with the name’s original holder, Europe’s Skylark?

In truth, the name “Meadowlark” for the Eastern, Western, and the recently “discovered” Chihuahuan Meadowlarks, which was split from the Eastern, doesn’t tell us much. It hints at the birds’ preference for grasslands. But many sparrows–the Lark Bunting, the Lark Sparrow, the Cassin’s Sparrow–all could be fairly called a meadowlark.

And this is why I especially like the name used in Mexico for Eastern Meadowlarks. At first, the name’s not unlike the English language one. “Pradero” translates to “Prairie,” pointing toward the Meadowlarks’ preferred habitats. But the name swerves at Tortillaconchile, an onomatopoeic rendition of their song: “tortilla chile.” As with all onomatopoeic names, it’s both a bit of a stretch and, once heard, a phrase that cannot be unheard.

Spotted Towhees, or “Rascador Moteado”

What’s a “towhee”? A large sparrow. Why’s a towhee called a towhee and not a sparrow? Because towhees make the sound “towhee.” But their call also sounds like “chewink,” another name once applied to the birds. Oh, and this only applies to the bird now called the Eastern Towhee, which gave the rest of the Pipilo genus its common name. (East coast bias…)

Throughout much of the West, the Spotted Towhee is the most common of the towhees. Here in Colorado’s suburbs, the presence of Spotted Towhees is a good indicator of a fairly healthy backyard ecosystem. They like cover, tangled shrubs, and fallen branches. Spotted is an okay descriptive, but Eastern Towhees have a few spots. Western Towhee might have worked, but there are several western towhees. Mew Towhee or Cat Towhee (like Catbird) could honor the species’ feline-like call.

In Mexico, Spotted Towhees are known as Rascador Moteado. Rascador translates to Scratcher, a description of the towhee’s method of gathering food by double-scratching the ground. Moteado means mottled, so not that different from spotted. Still, when combined with “Scratcher,” the name offers a bit more insight into the behavior and appearance of this remarkable towhee.

House Finch, or Pinzón Mexicano

Today, House Finches are among the most common and widespread finch in North America. But this wasn’t always the case. Until the 1940s, House Finches were exclusively western U.S. and Mexican birds. Early in the decade, House Finches were released on Long Island, setting in motion the species’ spread throughout the continent.

The scientific name of House Finches, Haemorhous mexicanus, recalls the bird’s center of gravity in Mexico and lands now part of the US that once belonged to Mexico. (The same is true for the Prairie Falcon, Falco mexicanus.) The name for the House Finch in Mexico, Pinzón Mexicano (the Mexican Finch) reminds us of what borders mean or don’t mean to birds and how our naming practices reflect this.

Loggerhead Shrike, or Verdugo Americano

Birders use the word “loggerhead” unreflexively, without much wonderment about what it means. (A disproportionately large head.) A strange word, indeed, and one that doesn’t mean a whole lot in the field.

Birders also call Loggerhead Shrikes, and Northern Shrikes as well, Butcherbirds, for how brutal these songbirds’ methods of hunting are. This is an old folk name for shrikes that’s now more of a curiosity than a common name for them. Both birds cache food, impaling live prey on thorns and barbed wire. In part, this is to ensure a consistent supply of food, particularly during winter and the breeding season. But the behavior may also be a display behavior, with male shrikes marking territories and advertising their skills in butchering.

In Mexico, the Loggerhead Shrike is known Verdugo American, or American Executioner or American Hangman. Not only is the name more evocative than Loggerhead. It also better suits these birds, whose paths through the world are marked by deaths.

Whip-poor-will, or Tapacaminos Cuerporruín

It wouldn’t be a bird list without a Whip-poor-will. In most languages, the species’ name is a translation of the bird’s song. Cuerporruínm, which is used in both Spain and Mexico, combines two words: “cuerpo” and “ruín.” (I think the addition of an “r” to join the two words is meant to replicate the bird’s trill, which is particularly pronounced in the Mexican Whip-poor-will (Antrostomus arizonae).)

As a translation of the species’ song, “Cuerporruín” is as effective of an imitation as “Whip-poor-will.” The name is also more evocative, translating to Despicable (or Contemptible, or Mean, or Vicious) Body.

But it’s not just Cuerporruín that enriches the Whip-poor-will. Tapacaminos is an alternative to the European and English language names for the Whip-poor-will’s family: Goatsuckers (e.g., Chotacabras, in Spain) and Nightjars. Both names are famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective). But neither is suitable. Goatsuckers is based on folklores around the bird, which had them suckling goats. Nightjar, which conjures the song of Europe’s nightjar, isn’t as suitable to the more melodious North American jars.

In Mexico, the name is used for three other Nightjars that are also present in the US: the Common Poorwill, the Mexican Whip-poor-will, and the Chuck Will’s Widow. The name combines two words: “tapa” and “caminos.” It translates to Trail Topper or Road Topper. A fitting name for the Nightjars like Whip-poor-wills and Poorwills, who will often hunt from the ground at the trail and roadsides that cut through their habitats.

On Birds, ChatGPT is Stuck in the 18th-century.

Three hundred years ago, naturalists couldn’t tell the difference between two iconic species of birds. Today, ChatGPT is making the same mistakes.

I recently asked ChatGPT an easy question: “Why a Whip-poor-will is named a Whip-poor-will?” The popular chatbot muddled its way through an answer, making some of the same mistakes as 18th century naturalists. Not satisfied with its errors, ChatGPT introduced new ones!

Wilson “Discovers” the Whip-poor-will

In the first decades of the 1800s, the Scottish naturalist Alexander Wilson wrote his nine volume book, American Ornithology. Wilson’s text remains one of North America’s most important book of ornithology. Indeed, many consider Wilson the continent’s first ornithologist.

One of the many achievements of American Ornithology was to finally and definitively describe the Whip-poor-will, a common but reclusive bird of North America’s east coast. Before Wilson, early naturalists confused the Whip-poor-will with a related and more conspicuous bird, the Common Nighthawk. Confronting this confusion, Wilson writes that the Whip-poor-will has “never been described by any writer whose work I am acquainted.”

A photograph of a Whip-poor-will, which ChatGPT confused with the Common Nighthawk. — Whip-poor-will by flickr user Tom Murray. Some rights reserved.

It wasn’t that the Whip-poor-will wasn’t known to early European naturalists who visited the US. The bird’s name dates to the early 1700s, after all. What Wilson shows, over the course of 2.5 pages on the species, is something else. Early naturalists regularly confused the Whip-poor-will with other North American Nightjars, especially the Nighthawk. Illustrations of Whip-poor-wills often combined both birds’ features. This plate that appeared in Mark Catesby’s studies of North American birds is illustrative. The drawing combines the long, lanky shape of a Nighthawk with the bristles of a Whip-poor-will.

Catesby’s Nighthawk-Whip-Poor-Will Hybrid

Audubon, a professional rival of Wilson, downplayed Wilson’s effort. In his influential book, The Birds of America, Audubon writes.

Much has been said respecting the difference existing between the Whip-poor-will and the Night Hawk, for the purpose of shewing them to be distinct species. On this subject I shall only say, that I have known both birds from my early youth, and I have seldom seen a farmer or even a boy in the United States, who did not know the difference between them.

A Common Nighthawk, which ChatGPT confused for a Whip-poor-will. — Common Nighthawk. Photo by flickr user Brandon Trentler. Some Rights Reserved.

ChatGPT’s Effort

I suppose that Audubon and his unnamed farmers and boys would be bemused at ChatGPT, which appears stuck in the late-1700s on Whip-poor-wills. When I asked it to explain how Whip-poor-wills got their name, the chatbot opened with a muddled collection of errors. It also offered a word, hwipporu, that doesn’t seem to exist.

The bird species known as the Common Nighthawk, which is also known as the Whip-poor-will, is named for its call, which sounds like “whip-poor-will.” The species’ scientific name, Chordeiles minor, also refers to this call. The name is thought to be a derivation of the Old English word “hwipporu,” meaning “to make a noise.” The bird species is known for its distinctive nocturnal song which is usually heard at dusk and dawn. They are named after the call of the male bird which is a repetitive phrase, “whip-poor-will” which is sung as a territorial call or as a courtship call by males.

Here’s a list of errors that I’ve noticed.

The Common Nighthawk hasn’t been known as the Whip-poor-will since the late eighteenth century.
The scientific name of the Common Nighthawk is indeed Chordeiles minor. However, this doesn’t refer to the call of “whip-poor-will.” I cover the meaning of this name in my post about the Nighthawk.
I’ve not yet read that the name Whip-poor-will is thought to be a derivation of “hwipporu.” I’m curious to know more, but neither Google, Google Scholar, nor Google Books returns a single reference to this “Old English” word.
We indeed known Whip-poor-wills are indeed known song, which they give at dusk and dawn. This makes the call crepuscular, not nocturnal. (Of all the mistakes, this one is minor.)

That this account reflects understandings of birds from colonial America is stupefying. But it gives me some satisfaction and hope that artificial intelligence has not yet mastered what is obscure among us. Much of what is important to know falls into this category. After all, what remains obscure to us, and to the technologies we create, is simply that which we do not know well.

Find the obscure, the weird, the forgotten, and you will find something that the algorithms don’t yet care for. Such is the life of the Whip-poor-will, calling still from the rotten woods of our forest floors.

For more on ChatGPT’s struggles will birds, see my recent post on the chatbot’s effort to create a list of birds named after their song.

The Wrong Duck: Folk Names in Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger

A character in Cormac McCarthy’s book The Passengers calls the Common Eider by the folkname Bridal Duck. But who is the real Bridal Duck?

Speaking of ducks, Geoff Stacks — friend, fellow birder, and fellow faculty at the University of Denver — sent me a puzzling passage from The Passenger, one of Cormac McCarthy’s two new novels. In the passage, one of the novel’s characters refers to the Common Eider correctly by its scientific name (Somateria mollissima) and incorrectly by a long-forgotten common name: the Bridal Duck.

The passage is puzzling because neither Geoff nor I had heard the name “Bridal Duck.” It’s also puzzling because it does not seem like that common name refers to the Eider. Rather, Geoff and I both found that the “Bridal Duck” was once a name that the Wood Duck was known by.

The scientific name of the Wood Duck — Aix sponsa — bears traces of this meaning. Sponsa apparently refers to a bride or betrothed woman. Other sources claim the name refers to the beauty of the male duck’s breeding plumage, taking “sponsa” to refer to the bridal dress of the bird’s plumage. Both meanings are referenced in Chester A. Reed’s early 20th century reference text, Birds of Eastern North America.

Wood Duck in Charles A. Reed's Field Guide — Reed – *Birds of Eastern North America*

A Duck By Any Other Name…

We have also known the Wood Duck by other names: Summer Duck, Woody, Squealer, Widgeon, or Acorn Duck.

We know Wood Ducks as Wood Ducks (and apparently “Woody”) because they nest in the cavities of trees. (I hope to not soon forget encountering Wood Duck parents perched in trees near the Mississippi River — or leading groups of downy young through those woods.)

We’ve called Wood Ducks “Squealers” for their dramatic screeches when flushed. Wood Ducks have often struck me as especially nervous around approaching humans, and I wonder if they still carry with them the hard won lessons of survival among humans with guns.

“Acorn Duck” refers to the fact that Wood Ducks consume the fruit of oak and other trees, invasive Russian Olives especially. I have seen Mallards feed beneath trees, too, gobbling down acorns from a landscaping tree at a local park.

Eider, Woody, and Mistaken Identity

All of this begs a question — why did McCarthy’s character get the “Bridal Duck” wrong? Is it McCarthy’s error, or does the error reveal something about the character?

Anyone can look up a folk name for birds. But the truth is that many might differ locally or regionally. And sometimes the same name was applied to multiple birds. This could be because two species were sometimes mistaken for each other. Or because different birds seemed to demand similar names.

So it’s hard to say why McCarthy’s character gets this wrong. But it’s also hard to say if a folk name can actually be used incorrectly. After all, they are folk names exactly because they aren’t systematized or formally accepted by birding organizations. So perhaps a Bridal Duck is whoever anyone calls a Bridal Duck.

Common Eider. Photo by Dave Willhite on Unsplash

Featured Photo by Tyler Jamieson Moulton on Unsplash

Bird Words: Do Ducks Duck (Updated)?

Human language and the lives of birds are intricately connected. This is one in a series of postings showing how.

Multiple Choice

Which of the following best explains the origin of the word “duck”?

(1) We call ducks “ducks” because they duck — dabbling and diving in water.

(2) We say someone “ducks” when they indeed duck because they’re ducking like the birds we call “ducks” duck.

(3) Huh?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “duck” originally referred to the swimming birds, particularly those in the genus Anas (e.g., mallards and domestic ducks). This use is documented as early as 967 AD.

By the 15th century, the word’s meaning had broadened. As a verb, the word could mean to “plunge or dive” — as ducks, indeed, do — under water.

By 1530, we no longer limited the action to water. The word now could also contain the act of bending or stooping quickly, whether on water or not. We were now ducking when we, in a sense, plunged or dove down to avoid or dodge something or to hide under things on land.

Perhaps my favorite meaning to the word is a US innovation, dating to the end of the 1800s. Then, the word took on two related meanings: to abscond or to dodge. Apparently, we owe these innovations to George Ade, a writer whose stories focused on life on American streets and used everyday slang to convey that life. Ade’s listed thrice in the OED entry for “duck,” the verb. Here’s one example, from Artie (1896), “He was with a lot o’ them Prairie avenue boys, and purty soon he ducks ’em and comes over an’ touches me for two cases.”

Short story long: the correct answer is (2). We say someone “ducks” when they indeed duck because they’re ducking like the birds we call “ducks” duck.

Update

According to The Bird Name Book: A History of English Bird Names by Susan Myers, the word “duck” may have an origin story that pre-dates the one that the OED tells. “The theoretical Old English word dūce is thought to come from the Old English verb dūcan, “to duck, to dive,” because of the way many species feed by upending or diving,” Myers writes (p. 108). This explanation has the action of ducking being applied to the bird that takes this action in water.

So perhaps the best answer is choice (A) after all!

But the more general point is this — the birds we call “ducks” just seem like “ducks.” And, if you’re like me, you don’t realize you’re alluding to a movement we share with ducks — to duck — when we indeed duck. Follow?

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Jargon

Featured Photo by Wai Siew on Unsplash

Bird Words: Jargon

Human language and the lives of birds are intricately connected. This is the first in a series of posts that shows how.

Academic writers rely on jargon, technical terminology to describe the phenomena we study.

Jargon may have some value. For those in the know, technical terms are a shortcut for complex ideas. For instance, you’d likely see an audience of sociologists bob their head in recognition when a speaker invokes “institutional isomorphism.” (I use this example only because I recently saw an audience of sociologists, myself included, bob our head in recognition of a speaker invoking institutional isomorphism.)

But even if jargon is necessary, academics’ reliance on it makes our writing indecipherable by many readers. And rarely do our readers tell us how much they appreciate our use of jargon.

Because I associate jargon with the most listless, uninspired academic writing, I was surprised to learn (from a colleague in the Writing Program at the University of Denver) that word’s etymology draws on the world of birds.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest use of the word “jargon” is as a verb meaning to make a range of bird sounds — to warbler, twitter, and chatter. This use dates to the 1360s, approximately.

Quickly, the word came to be used to describe people using nonsense language, as a bird warbles, tweets, and chatters. Chaucer used it in this sense, comparing a person to a bird (a magpie, apparently): “He was al coltissh ful of ragerye And ful of Iargon as a flekked pye.”

Jargon bring us closer to the birds. There’s a House Wren in the journals, a Winter Wren in the stacks.

Featured Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Category: Language