11 October 2014

Red-necked Spurfowl

Since the birding specialists decided to harmonize the names of birds around the world, I along with many other mortals, have had to adapt to the new names. It's not that I resist change, but let's face it, the new names very often do not have a good ring to them.

Take this Red-necked Spurfowl for example - it used to be called the Red-necked Francolin and I still think of them as Francolin. My grandfather called them pheasants and so did I for many years, until I adapted to Francolin.

I suppose those massive spurs on its legs give credence to its new name and so I will just have to adapt.


2 comments:

Judy said...

I have read somewhere about francolins... Somehow, spurfowl just has no ring to it...

Jo said...

I started birding in 2004. The bird reference book I bought for Africa, had the new names. So I learnt from scratch! Ironically I photographed a spurfowl(my husband calls it a francolin, he's been birding for much longer!) here in Tanzania last week and couldn't id it. I sent it to experts who help me and they came back with Red-necked Spurfowl, Juvenile.