Legend

Answered

name this bird?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
September 20, 2018
5 replies
1317 views

I can't find the correct name of this little fellow... anyone seen one of these?

taken last Monday, Dawkins Park, Macksville Australia

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Michael J. Hoffman

Looks like a c-o-o-t. They are plentiful here in Florida.

C-oot - Wikipedia

Mike

P.S. I guess the name of this bird must be a Jive forbidden word, because it changed it to “****” - I had to add dashes between the letters to get it to display.

Ussnorway7605025Author

Legend

I have another one... what is this fellows name?

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jane-e

Community Expert

The Australian C o o t is one of the 10 types of c o o t s in the world:

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-ten-species-of-coots-living-in-the-world-today.html

D Fosse

Community Expert

Ah. So in this case they really are closely related - and in fact we have the same species here in Norway as they do in Australia. That's pretty rare and special.

In other cases the same name can refer to very different things. This wanders a bit off, but it's an interesting example. This is what we call "ghost orchid" in Europe (extremely rarely seen in flower, only about 100 recorded sightings in Norway, of which I'm lucky enough to be one):

In the US, a ghost orchid looks like this. Those who have seen the film "Adaptation" will recognize it (Wikimedia Commons, Mick Fournier):

Yes, under slightly different circumstances I might have ended up studying biology instead of art and photography. But I still know my way around the local fauna and flora.

D Fosse

Community Expert

What you all need to consider is that species aren't the same around the world. Every species has a distribution range, and outside that range other species may occupy the same ecological niche - either a closely related species from the same genus, or a different one altogether.

This isn't a trivial matter. Just as an example, this is responsible for a lot of mushroom poisoning, some of them fatal. People move to a different part of the world, find something that looks roughly the same as they're used to. Only this one is lethal. It happens a lot.

As for this one, it's Fulica atra. It can be found from Northwestern Europe, across Asia and from there into Australia. But the Australian bird is a different sub-species. It is not found in the Americas, so what they call coot there has to be something else that just looks similar.

An American "robin" isn't even remotely related to the original European robin. It's a completely different bird that just happens to have a reddish breast. American blackbirds have nothing to do with the European blackbird Turdus merula, and so on.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Graham, we call it an 'Australian Coot' here, and it has the same eye colour. Stuffy PSNZ types, or at least those with a Natural History bent, would refer to it as Fulica atra australis. Would you believe that you would actually loose points in a NH competition if you got the capitalization wrong with the Latin name? I assisted during the judging of the NATEX (National Exhibition) judging when my club ran the National Convention in 2014, and the NH judges took themselves a touch too seriously for my liking.

Australian coot | New Zealand Birds Online

Michael J. Hoffman

Correct answer

Community Expert

Looks like a c-o-o-t. They are plentiful here in Florida.

C-oot - Wikipedia

Mike

P.S. I guess the name of this bird must be a Jive forbidden word, because it changed it to “****” - I had to add dashes between the letters to get it to display.

Ussnorway7605025Author

Legend

yes I considered cøot but the images in the Wiki have brown eyes and my guy has red ones so I dismissed it

o for the love ... how is that a blocked word?

Michael J. Hoffman

Community Expert

I think the red vs brown is just depending on the light and how the photo was taken/processed. The ones here have red eyes too. I think the Wikipedia image has a bit of color management issue.

And yes, I can’t believe that’s a blocked word! I guess somewhere that must have an alternate meaning. Around here, it’s a slang term for an old person, but I don’t think that would result in a blocked word...

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