This is Bird Note.

The Fulvis Whistling Duck is a lanky brown bird with a high-pitched call.

The name not only denotes the duck's distinctive voice, but also their characteristic color.

Fulvis, voice, but also their characteristic color.

Fulvis comes from a Latin word meaning tawny or yellowish red in color. Though it never caught on in everyday speech, more than a dozen birds have Fulvis in their common English names.

It's one of many color words specific to birds and nature.

Take bay, for example. Both bay horses and bay-breasted warblers are named for their prominent reddish-brown features.

The fearsome, ferruginous hawk might not seem like it belongs on this list, but ferruginous actually comes from the Latin word for rust.

Or the Rufus hummingbird, whose moniker references the way this species gleams like polished copper in afternoon

sunlight.

That rich cinnamon-red hue gets an even fancier flourish with the rufesant ant- trike of Peru.

You can learn more about the colorful world of birds at our website, birdnote.org.

I'm Michael Stein.