WarbleAt least seven common American birds are named for what they say. The Black-capped Chickadee calls chick-a-dee-dee-dee, the Eastern Phoebe says a raspy phoe-be, the Killdeer shrieks kill-deer, the Eastern Wood-Pewee whistles pee-a-wee, the Northern Bobwhite whistles bob-WHITE, and after dark the Eastern Whip-poor-will and Chuck-will's-widow chant their full names for hours. Out West the Common Poorwill and the Willet do the same. The names stuck because a word that sounds like the bird is the easiest possible thing to remember.
The daytime name-sayers
These five sing or call in daylight, most of them within earshot of eastern suburbs.
The chickadee's call is more than a name tag. Researchers found that the number of dee notes tracks how dangerous a nearby predator is. Small, agile raptors earn extra dees, usually four instead of two, and one alarm about a pygmy owl ran to 23 of them. The bird is the state bird of Massachusetts and Maine, and it is a permanent resident across the northern United States and southern Canada, in open woods, forest edges and suburbs with birches or alders.
Phoebes arrive early in spring, and they like people's buildings: nests go under bridges, in barns and in culverts. Do not confuse the phoebe's burry phoe-be with the chickadee's sweet whistled fee-bee. Same two syllables, very different voices.
The Killdeer is a plover that gave up on beaches. It nests on open ground: fields, airports, lawns, river banks and sometimes rooftops. It calls at night as well as by day, and near a nest the adult flutters along the ground as if its wing were broken, drawing you off.
The pewee is a summer bird of eastern woodlands, arriving mostly in May and leaving by early October. It sings hardest at dawn and dusk and keeps going after most songbirds have gone quiet, so a whistled name from the woods at supper time is usually this one.
The bobwhite is a quail of hedgerows, overgrown fields and wood edges. It has vanished from much of the northern part of its range and declined badly in the South, so hearing that whistle is a smaller pleasure than it once was.
The night shift
Two eastern nightjars chant their names after dark, and a western one does the same.
Whip-poor-wills live in rich, moist deciduous or mixed woods and are heard far more than seen; their camouflage is that good. They forage at dusk, at dawn and on moonlit nights, and they time nesting so that the moon is more than half full when there are chicks to feed. Numbers have fallen across much of the East in recent decades, possibly because the big moths and beetles they eat have become scarcer, and the species is now listed as Near Threatened.
The Chuck-will's-widow is the southern cousin, a bird of oak and pine woods and swamp edges across the Southeast, and the largest nightjar in North America at around 12 inches long. The two get mixed up because of their similar songs and odd names, but the pace gives them away: the chuck is unhurried and the whip-poor-will is emphatic.
West of the Plains, the Common Poorwill whistles a soft poor-will from dry, rocky slopes on moonlit nights, and it holds a stranger distinction: it was the first bird known to hibernate, lowering its body temperature and heartbeat for days or weeks in cold weather. Along the coasts and prairie marshes the Willet, a big gray shorebird, rings out pill-will-willet in flight.
Why so many bird names are sounds
Naming a bird after its voice feels obvious, and English has done it a lot: killdeer, curlew, whip-poor-will, phoebe, pewee, chickadee, bobolink, bobwhite, willet, poorwill and more. Even owl, crow and raven trace back to Old English words that imitated the birds. Writing for the American Ornithological Society, Bob Montgomerie counted roughly two dozen such names among North American birds and at least eighteen in Britain, then found the habit surprisingly rare elsewhere, with only a handful of examples in the rest of the world combined. Some of the American names arrived with early naturalists and explorers who reused European ones.
Why does it work? A 2021 study in PLoS One asked more than a hundred people to rate word-like descriptions of bird calls and found they largely agreed on which words fit which sounds. Onomatopoeic words connect a sound directly to its meaning, and words learned that way are processed with unusual ease. In other words, a name that is also the call is a mnemonic you never have to learn.
One that fools people
The Blue Jay does not count. Its name comes from the Old French jai, meaning merry, not from the jay, jay scream, however convincing that sounds.
Hear them say it
The easiest way to lock these in is to catch the bird in the act: a wood edge at dawn for the phoebe and pewee, a gravel lot or ball field for the Killdeer, a warm May night in the Southeast for the two nightjars. If a whistle from the hedge is close to bob-white but you are not sure, Warble can listen along and put the card in your album while the bird is still calling. After a whip-poor-will has said its name a few hundred times in a row, you will not need help remembering it.
Questions people ask
Which bird says its own name at night?
In the East, the Eastern Whip-poor-will and the Chuck-will's-widow, both nightjars that repeat their names for hours on spring and summer nights. In the West it is the Common Poorwill. The Killdeer also calls at night, though it is not a night bird.
Is the phoebe named after its call?
Yes. Audubon's field guide gives the song as a clear phoe-be repeated many times, and the name matches it. It is a burry, unmusical sound, unlike the sweet whistled fee-bee of a Black-capped Chickadee.
What does a bobwhite sound like?
A clear, slow whistle of two or three notes, bob-WHITE or poor-bob-WHITE, with the last note rising sharply. You hear it in spring from farmland, brushy pastures and wood edges, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest where the birds remain.
Why do chickadees add more dee notes?
The extra notes signal danger. Studies of Black-capped Chickadees found the number of dees rises with the threat a predator poses, so a small, quick hawk or owl earns more of them than a large, slow one.
Sources
- American Ornithological Society, Bob Montgomerie: What's in a (Bird's) Name?. americanornithology.org/whats-in-a-birds-name/
- National Audubon Society, Guide to North American Birds: species accounts (Black-capped Chickadee, Eastern Phoebe, Killdeer, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Northern Bobwhite, Eastern Whip-poor-will, Chuck-will's-widow, Common Poorwill, Willet). www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/eastern-whip-poor-will
- Wikipedia: Black-capped chickadee (call, dee notes and state bird status). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-capped_chickadee
- Wikipedia: Killdeer (name and scientific name). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killdeer
- Vella, Johnson and Roe, PLoS One (2021): Describing the sounds of nature: Using onomatopoeia to classify bird calls for citizen science. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8115837/