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Charles Harper’s Birds & Words: A Review of a Classic Reborn

10,000 Birds

So, the Eastern Kingbird ”is one of the Tyrant Flycatchers, Tyrannidae –America’s largest bird family–365 different species.” The Eskimo Curlew “ran the gauntlet of a hunter army, which stalked him from state to state to provision meat counters by the wagonload.”

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Of Whiskey Jacks and Water Ouzels

10,000 Birds

Also known as Meat-bird, Moosebird, and Lumberjack. Clark’s Nutcracker : On the other hand, the folk vernacular can be surprisingly insightful about taxonomy and even convergent evolution, as when people call this non-standard corvid a Woodpecker Crow. These are just a handful of the better-documented vernacular names.

Hunters 189