Date: 3/25/25 5:21 am From: Bob Muldoon <muldoonbob...> Subject: [MASSBIRD] My Bird Story in Lawrence Eagle-Tribune (OpEd 3/23)
> Name-dropping is for the birds
> Robert Muldoon
> Commentary
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> In a December 2023 Instagram post, David Allen Sibley, the literary descendant of John James Audubon and America’s foremost bird author and illustrator, issued a statement: “My Personal Take on Eponymous Bird Names.” That is, he was opining about birds named after people. Two such examples are Lewis’s Woodpecker and Clark’s Nutcracker, named after the explorers Lewis and Clark.
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> Sibley is the bestselling author of books such as “Sibley Guide to Birds,” “Sibley Birds East,” “Sibley Birds West,” and “Sibley’s Birding Basics” — all eponymous, named after Sibley.
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> Sibley’s personal take on the topic was that he was not comfortable with birds named after people. Without a hint of irony, or self awareness, the eponymous author declared he was resolutely against eponymous birds.
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> As Sibley the illustrator had long followed Audubon’s lead, Sibley the activist followed the American Ornithological Society which a month earlier announced it “will change all English bird names currently named after people.”
> That meant 70 to 80 birds would be renamed because “exclusionary naming conventions developed in the 1800s, clouded by racism and misogyny, don’t work for us today,” said Judith Scal, PhD, CEO.
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> As a birder since 1974, I have 27 eponymous birds on my “life list” of 338 species. These include Cooper’s Hawk, Gambel’s Quail, Townsend’s Solitaire, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Lucy’s Warbler, and Anna’s Hummingbird, named for the 19th century Italian Duchess Anna Massena.
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> Sibley readily acknowledged that “not all the people were bad,” but some were, like General Winfred Scott, who participated in the “Trail of Tears” that forced the removal of the Cherokee people. That meant Scott’s Oriole needed to be renamed.
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> But Sibley, busily cranking out bestsellers, didn’t want to get in the “quagmire of moral judgment” in evaluating scores of eponymous birds on a “case-by- case” basis, so the simple solution was “renaming ALL birds.”
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> To Sibley, a few bad apples ruined the whole bunch.
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> But a similar renaming standard would not apply to bird books, such as the Sibley, Peterson, and Audubon guides. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander — ornithologically speaking? Nope!
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> One bad apple bird-author does not ruin all bird books.
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> In March 2023, the National Audubon Society had decided to keep its name despite Audubon being “an enslaver, whose racist and harmful attitudes towards Blacks and Indigenous peoples are now well understood.” The justification was “the name has come to represent so much more than the work of one person, but a broad love of birds and nature.”
> The announcement also featured a $25 million “commitment to fund the expansion of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB).”
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> A spoonful of sugar, it seemed to say, would help make the medicine go down. Today, dozens of National Audubon Society Guides cram bookshelves, identifying everything from fossils and mushrooms, to wildflowers and seashells across diverse geographic regions.
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> One impetus to rename birds came after an infamous 2020 Central Park incident when a white female dogwalker accused Black birder Christian Cooper of threatening her. The episode, which Cooper recorded, was bogus and disgusting. The dogwalker was publicly shamed and fired. But a larger lesson taken was birdwatching was not inclusive enough, and bird names especially were exclusionary.
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> Sibley promulgated that the “only viable solution” was “renaming ALL birds” for this simple reason: “Not because all of the people were bad, but because it’s impossible to determine who was ‘good enough.’”
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> Not all Sibley’s 41,000 followers were thrilled with the wholesale renaming. One, who identified as “neurodivergent,” wasn’t keen on erasing all the old names and relearning the new ones. Sibley was sympathetic, but righteously unmoved. Sure, it will be tough for all of us, but it’s for the greater good!
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> Other followers noted that the changes would benefit Sibley, who has sold an estimated 1.75 million books: “Does this mean a third edition?” asked one.
> “You could sell more books!” another offered.
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> “I’m just mildly annoyed that my field guides will be outdated and I’ll have to fix them myself or buy new and updated ones,” complained a third.
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> Sibley, the bird song expert, appeared tone deaf to all the chirping.
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> But he did anticipate a conflict of interest in his lengthy Instagram post, and headed it off at the pass: “And simply because birds are not objects. They should not have to carry the banner for a person, no matter how good that person was.”
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> But books — and nature organizations — are objects, and by inference, eponymous naming rules shouldn’t apply. And so the Sibley name remains affixed to the objects of his wealth and fame: Sibley Guides.
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> Rules for thee but not for me.
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> As for the rest of us, we’ll have to dutifully relearn all the new names. And hope, in the thrill of the chase, we don’t dead name a Clark’s Nutcracker or Lewis’s Woodpecker — and for our microaggression, feel the hot, indignant stares magnified through high-powered binoculars and scopes, or balefully peeking out behind Sibley and Audubon Guides.
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> As for myself, I’ll stick with my dog-eared 1970s edition of the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds. It suits me just fine.
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> Contributing columnist Robert Muldoon is an Andover native.
