Let’s Make This Perfectly Clear

My grandfather’s old Illinois hunting license, issued in 1907, states “You must not kill, catch or have in possession, living or dead, any wild bird or part of bird other than a game bird, except English sparrow, crow, crow black-bird or chicken hawk, …” I was surprised. A raptor not being included as a protected bird was incongruent with my experience. But to be honest, my first thought when I read the statement was that Foghorn Leghorn, the rooster of Looney Tunes cartoon fame, would approve!

“Glass Weed, that is what I use to soothe the itch of poison ivy rash,” said a fellow outdoor enthusiast. I knew of no plant called “glass weed.”

“I just saw a flock of ducks land on our pond; they are baldpate,” declared my husband as he came in from doing farm chores. I chuckled. “You just made up that name, didn’t you?”

“I’ve been seeing water moccasins along the shore at the dam here at Sam Parr Lake,” said a fisherman. I thought, “I might want to avoid that shore.”

“Listen. Hear that timberdoodle?” said a visiting birdwatcher. “Sure,” I lied. The only bird call I heard was a bizz – bizz – bizz, being voiced by a woodcock.

In discussion about nature, if colloquialisms (informal expressions) or common names are familiar to the speaker but not the listener (or to the writer but not the reader), communication fumbles. That’s why scientific nomenclature was invented. Yet, sometimes the use of common names can make things perfectly clear.

The descriptors in common names can paint vivid images. That fellow outdoor enthusiast pointed out glass weed as we walked through the Embarras River’s floodplain. It was Impatiens capensis, which I’ve always called jewelweed. In the later afternoon sunshine, I noticed that its pale green stems were translucent, like stained glass delicately sculpted by a glassblower; and its small bright orange blooms glistened like jewels. We agreed that both common names were perfect, and we agreed on the worth of the plant as an herbal remedy. When smeared upon skin, jewelweed sap does soothe itch or pain caused by plant irritants, even those caused by stinging nettle which I encountered – ouch – during that walk through the floodplain.

“The patch of white feathers on the male wigeon’s head makes its crown seem to shine, like my bald head does,” explained my husband with a chuckle. “Hence, baldpate.” The drakes of American wigeon (Mareca americana) are also recognizable by wide green stripes on each side of those white crowns; hens are brown and gray. These dabbling ducks visit Illinois as they migrate, often stopping to nibble on duckweed and milfoil at farm ponds.

A common name of a bird may reveal the bird’s appearance. If you say “great-horned owl, short-eared owl, tufted titmouse and double-crested cormorant,” you’ve spoken of tufts of feathers. Color words may indicate where notable hues lie, e.g. a red-tailed hawk and a red-shouldered hawk. By the way, either of those hawks, along with Cooper’s hawk and sharp-shinned hawk, probably deserved the name “chicken hawk” when they preyed upon the farmyard chickens of olden days.

The name “white-front” suggests the face patch of white feathers on an adult greater white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons), but this species also goes by the name of speckled bellies due to black splotches on its belly. With a lot of high-pitched squawking and squeaking, a white-front might answer to the nickname “laughing goose.”

Have you ever heard the vocalization of a spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) during the frog’s spring mating season? If not, you can guess the sound by the common name.

When we speak the common name of Antrostomus vociferus, we employ onomatopoeia. The words, “whip” and “poor” and “will” imitate the bird’s song. Name that tune!

Common names offer hints about habitat preferences. A water moccasin is a reptile that may be seen swimming across the water surface or lurking in shallow water; the snake utilizes an aquatic habitat. However, “water moccasin” is often used to indicate the venomous cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus), so when a person refers to a non-venomous water snake (Nerodia spp.) as a “water moccasin,” his or her listener may become unduly alarmed.

What type of habitat is utilized by a greater prairie-chicken or a meadowlark? Where might a male swamp darner (dragonfly) go cruising to find a mate?

A woodcock (Scolopax minor) is one species in the grouping of sandpipers, many of which use long bills to extract tasty critters (insects, crustaceans, and such) from wet sand, but woodcocks prefer to probe their bills into the moist soil of woodlands, tugging out earthworms. I often hear the calls of male woodcocks in our riparian zone (bottomland) tree plantings in early spring when their peenting (vocalizing) and spiraling flight or sky dance is done to entice the ladies. Other times I’ve seen woodcocks dawdled along, exhibiting a rocking motion. Once while I was walking in our upland woods, a woodcock, upon whom I almost stepped, erupted off the forest floor. Through the timber it flew, going this way and that, dodging trees. Maybe that is why its other name is “timberdoodle.”

Sometimes common names leave little to the imagination. “Red-headed woodpecker” obviously names a bird bedecked in a hood of red plumage which, like others of the Piciformes order, obtains its food by chiseling or pecking away at wood with its rather durable beak. The brown creeper is a brownish bird that goes creeping up on bugs. Yet, if one thinks of “creeping” as moving very slowly, then “brown creeper” is a misnomer because that little songbird skitters and skedaddles. With quick steps it zigzags up tree trunks, stops, probes with its downcurved beak, grabs an insect, and moves on.

An Illinois year-round mammalian resident, dubbed Marmota monax, will emerge from its underground burrow to pig out on a whole gamut of vegetation. Its buffet table might be a soybean field, a garden or even a leafy mulberry tree. Yep, that’s the groundhog I’m talking about. If you’ve ever heard a groundhog’s high-pitched bark, then you know why it is also called “whistle-pig.” However, the name “woodchuck” has nothing to do with its looks, nor its habits and haunts. An etymological explanation is required here. “Wuchak,” was a name given it by the Algonquians (people of a Native American tribe).

Consider the diminished self-image of the eastern musk turtle whose nickname is “little stinkpot” and whose scientific name includes “odoratus.”

Somewhere within a body of freshwater there is a fish vehemently objecting to its common name. It might be saying, “Let me make this perfectly clear; the barbels surrounding my mouth are nothing like a feline’s whiskers.”