Hello and welcome to the American Birding Podcast for the American Birding Association.

I am your host, Nate Swick.

We had some big news at the end of last month pertaining to an issue that we've been covering

here a fair bit in the last few weeks, and that is that McCown's long spur is now McCown's wrong spur.

The American Ornithological Society's North American Classification Committee changed the common name.

They removed the F&M honoring the one-time Confederate General John Porter McCown.

The bird will now be known on checklists and field guides

and everywhere else as thick-billed long sperm. And I know there has been some consternation

about the name. There were a lot of options available for this bird, including bay-winged

and black-breasted, which were both names that have been

used in the relatively distant past. Other names referred to the habitat it prefers. Shortgrass

long spur, prairie long spur. In fact, short grass and Thickbill were the two finalists that

the committee was choosing between. And in the end, they went with thick build, which is I do have

to acknowledge a field mark that is evident in all plumages and sexes of the bird, at least

relative to the other longspurs. So that is helpful to some extent. Let's say you have a mixed

flock of long spurs on some Oklahoma prairie. The thick build are the ones with the thicker

bills. It's helpful. It's also sort of a rough translation of the genus, uh, Rinko Fannies, Rinchophonies,

Rinchofanis, I'm not exactly sure how to say that. I've been saying online it was a direct

translation. I don't know that it is,

but it is sort of close. Rincho, Rinko is from the Greek for Bill. But to the best I can tell,

the Fonis part means showing, which can be interpreted as prominent, I suppose. I also sort of

found it to mean shining or bright, which is similar, depending on

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