All our American homies are going:
"Wat?"
Erithacus rubecula is the European robin, and doesn't look much like our ubiquitous American robin and in fact isn't even in the same family, although they are both passerines. The only other things they have in common are reddish bellies and the fact that early European colonists (and the British in particular) were devastatingly uncreative and habitually went around naming apparently every single thing in the new world after things they already had back in the old world.
In other news, the American robin's scientific name is Turdus migratorius. "Turdus" being Latin for "thrush" and having absolutely nothing to do with their propensity to crap on your car. Honest.
This episode of Bird Facts brought to you for no reason in particular.
Well in Germany they're just called "lil' red throat"
Rouge-Gorge here :)
All of my Dick Grayson fanart came with the wrong bird until I figured out American Robins were a thing.
And the "old world" version of animals are usually superior. I had a very confusing conversation about squirrels with a New Yorker friend who was describing squirrels as fluffier rats, and I was describing lovely furballs. Then we respectively found out about grey/red squirrels.
“Turdus” being Latin for “thrush” and having absolutely nothing to do with their propensity to crap on your car. Honest.
Here I am, wiping european tears of laughter off my cheeks. Incidentally, I was wondering who blackbirds had pissed off to be named "Turdus Merula", aka "poop noxious fungus".
Beautiful shot!
Thank you!
Really nice photo, what were you taking it with, and what sort of distance?
My Robin story I love to trot out is as follows.
Once upon a time in England there were Redbreasts and Wrens.
This wasn't good enough for poets, so we had Robin Redbreasts and Jenny Wrens (amongst other birds and animals Reynard the Fox, for instance).
But time went by, and people sometimes started just calling them Robins and Jenny's. The former caught on, so the common use name became Robin, while Wren stuck better. However, you will still hear the two part names from time to time.
Canon R7, Sigma contemporary 150/600mm. It was on a low tree branch so between 2 to 4m away? The odds were NOT in my favor for this picture because I accidentally locked the camera on "ISO 100", this handheld with 2kg+ camera/lens on a windy day. Got lucky :)
Oh that's wonderful. I head "Robin Redbreast" before but I had no idea about Jenny Wren. Lovely!
Modern stabilizers are pretty good as long as the subject holds still.
