The Rufous Flanked Spatula

I love the way people have, historically, named things. I can imagine early settlers sailing up the Wolastoq River with one on-board genius in particular saying 'we need to name this river, what day is it'? Had the answer been Wednesday, then I might have spent much of my life criss-crossing the Wednesday River. It happened to be St.Jean Baptiste day, June 24, when Champlain re-named our beloved riviere. So the St.John River it finally became, though I would have been happy with Mercredi River too.

It's worth mentioning that  the word Wolastoq means 'good and beautiful river' which is preferable to naming it after some Saint who didn't even have the decency to visit. When some other underling explorer, likely a Scot, got as far as Grand Lake, they no doubt said 'aye, it's a bonnie lake'. When the big boss explorer arrived he might have said 'aye, it's a grand lake', so Grand Lake it is. Bonnie Lake would have worked too, though it could have remained as the big lake they called Gitche Gumee.

Did you know that the St.John River is the second longest river east of the Mississippi? Only the Susquehanna is longer. Do you also get the sense that the Mississippi and the Susquehanna managed to keep their First Nation names? Methinks so.

Today's image show a Northern Shoveler duck that I photographed in Sheffield, paddling around a farmer's field that was flooded by the Wolastoq River. The northern shoveler is aptly named because it tends to summer in the north, and it's got a beak like a shovel. That said, it could have just as easily been named the Arctic Excavator or the Rufous Flanked Spatula!

Is it just me or do ornithologists have a particular fondness for the word 'rufous'? Trust me, they do. The only time I see the word is in bird books. No one ever says 'I love the colour of your new Camaro. Is it red, or orange, or rufous'? If you use the term rufous outside of bird watching circles, you will be beat up. I once received two black eyes for commenting on a woman's rufous culottes.

Rufous (from Wikipedia): The first recorded use of rufous as a colour name in English was in the year 1782.^[2] Its hex code is #A81C07. However, the colour is also recorded earlier in 1527 as a diagnostic urine colour.

Isn't that lovely? The northern shoveler, and the rufous hummingbird and the rufous crowned sparrow, are all named after a colour reminiscent of a diagnostic urine colour. Something tells me that you'd be pissed off to be named after a reddish urine sample. You'd probably also be in dire physical straits.

Well, that's enough of a history lesson for today. I think we should revert all place and animal names in New Brunswick back to their original names, pre-European arrival. They seem more fitting and logical. The city of Saint John would once again be called Nagoomitakinsock, meaning 'outhouse of the Wolastoq people'. Of course I made that up, but what do you think our First nations people would have named Saint John?