11/20/2005

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Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick: Calling Birds (for the Week of Nov. 20, 2005)

Writer:

Kurt Knebusch
knebusch.1@osu.edu
330-263-3776

Dear Twig: OK, speaking of Christmas songs, how about “The Twelve Days of Christmas”? What’s a “calling bird”?

Today when people sing that song they usually sing about “calling birds.” Four of them, to be exact. But actually many years ago they sang the song’s old English words. They sang about colly, or collie, birds.

“Colly” or “collie” means “black,” according to the British Broadcasting Corporation. It comes from an old word for coal. So that means on the fourth day of Christmas your true love should give you four blackbirds, providing he or she can catch them after already chasing a partridge (which can fly), two doves (ditto) and three hens (which don’t fly well but sure can run) (especially when organized).

The Internet Wikipedia pins down “colly bird” even more: to the European blackbird. Common in parks and cities in Europe, it looks like a dusky version of its cousin, the American robin. Both belong to the thrush family. Like all thrushes, they sing (or “call”) beautifully — a gift indeed to those who hear them.

Twig

P.S. Unrelated: The European blackbird and North American “true” blackbirds like the red-wing.

Note: Twig's e-mail distribution service is going through some updates and changes. One of them: The PDF version of the column won't be attached to the e-mail anymore; instead you'll get a link to where it's posted. The unformatted text, as before, will come to you in the body of the e-mail message. If you'd rather have the PDF version included with that e-mail, like it used to be, easy enough: just let me know -- knebusch.1@osu.edu or 330-263-3776 -- and I'll put you on a mail list for it.

Find the BBC source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A212266, the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Days_of_Christmas. Scientists call the thrush family Turdidae, with the European blackbird known as Turdus merula and the American robin as Turdus migratorius. To learn what “turdus” means, read Twig’s Jan. 30, 2005, column, http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/story.php?id=3023.

“Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick,” a service of The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences — specifically, of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) and Ohio State University Extension, both part of the College — is a weekly column for children about science, nature, farming and the environment. For details and to receive Twig free by mail, e-mail or fax, contact Kurt Knebusch, News and Media Relations, CommTech, OSU/OARDC,1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, OH 44691, knebusch.1@osu.edu, (330) 263-3776. Available online at extension.osu.edu/~news/archive.php?series=science.