The majestic, if somewhat out of tune, Storm CockNo im not referring to some plumbing or tree surgery terminology but to the quaint olde country English names for some of our birds which are sadly now all too often lost amidst out declining dialects. They have sprang to mind this week as the weather has warmed just a little and the first glimmers of spring are showing, the first snow drops have poked the heads above ground and the early birds are starting their pre nuptials.
The storm cock, being one of the first and earliest nesters was out in full cry this week, they nest annually in the tall trees opposite my front door so leaving the drive on the way to work I paused to listen the dulcet tones of the Mistle thrush, not quite as melodic as its cousin the song thrush, in fact darn right out of tune but bird song nonetheless and a welcome change over the drone of traffic.
On the way to work I was mulling over the many names we had as kids for everything we saw and found. As a somewhat feral child I spent many hours outside the parental home rummaging through the fields and hedgerows usually up to some act that was either bordering on the lawful or nowadays totally illegal. As we learnt by our mistakes and experience both first hand or as wisdom passed on by an older boy, it was a life full of knowledge gained first hand. In a world before the Xboxes and 24hr TV our thirst for knowledge was endless and to me that was all things in the natural world. I had to pick it up, sniff it, collect it, keep it and take it home, much to the disgust of my parents.
The storm cock, being one of the first and earliest nesters was out in full cry this week, they nest annually in the tall trees opposite my front door so leaving the drive on the way to work I paused to listen the dulcet tones of the Mistle thrush, not quite as melodic as its cousin the song thrush, in fact darn right out of tune but bird song nonetheless and a welcome change over the drone of traffic.
On the way to work I was mulling over the many names we had as kids for everything we saw and found. As a somewhat feral child I spent many hours outside the parental home rummaging through the fields and hedgerows usually up to some act that was either bordering on the lawful or nowadays totally illegal. As we learnt by our mistakes and experience both first hand or as wisdom passed on by an older boy, it was a life full of knowledge gained first hand. In a world before the Xboxes and 24hr TV our thirst for knowledge was endless and to me that was all things in the natural world. I had to pick it up, sniff it, collect it, keep it and take it home, much to the disgust of my parents.
No Stinker at all the beautiful and much missed starlingNames we had like the storm cock were passed down as folklore but they were often had a special reverence attached to them. The storm cock was a favourite because he would not only sing in a storm, as his name implies but because they were fiercely protective of their nests, so it was a brave boy who scaled the heights to find the Mistle thrushes nest in the fork of a tree. There were many more the ‘scribblyjack’ was so named because of the exquisite markings on what is the yellowhammers egg. Dickie hedgie or hedge spuggie should be familiar with many but they were terms for the Dunnock or hedge sparrow, spuggie being quite a collective name for small brown birds. A skytie was a skylark, a stinker was a starling and a babbler was one of the tits usually the great tit, and always one that brought a snigger to a small boys face, ‘whitearse’ the wheatear.
One of the babblers, a coal tit Most of these names come from a distant age and are derivatives from either old or middle English, a Germanic origin like most of our dialects. It wasn’t just birds we had names for we would say brock and Bill as a common name for the badger (one of my dogs is still called Brock) and fitch for someone’s ferret, hedgepig for a hedgehog or Charlie or tod for a fox. One of my favourites and one I still use today is the whinny bush, which is the much maligned gorse bush, which has so many things associated with it the whin sill and whin chat are all found around the whinny bushes.
Place names too we shared, whinny hill, the hill with gorse on and lappy island was obviously where lapwings were and foxes wood, the wood where we saw a fox. This is of course not a new thing people have been doing such things for years as is reflected in the many place name the region is rich with.
Beautiful Whinny bushes rich in bird life and bugs
A few that spring to mind are obviously Otterburn, the stream where otters frequent, Todhill, fox hill and one of my favourites Foulmart knowe or a small hillock where polecats live but my favourite of all and a little known one is Bewshaugh, incidentally near Kielder, a low ground by the river where beaver built their dams. So many give us tantalising little clues as to our past fauna and flora and hope to us that wish we may see some reinstated but that’s another storey. All I wish for is that on reflection we don’t loose these names words and phrases they make our language so much more, well interesting and less boring so keep out the clarts and divint get hacky durty filthy black.
No comments:
Post a Comment