I’m lying in my hospital bed at 7.30 am and if I lie quite far down the bed I can see Common House Martins (Delichon urbicum) flying to and from what I think must be a small colony (2 or 3 nests probably), which is just out of sight round the corner of the building.
House Martins build nests out of mud under the eaves of buildings so I think these ones must have got the mud for their nests from the banks of the Ormesby Beck (which also flows through North Ormesby where I live), less than 500 metres away. They might also have got some of it from puddles in the hospital grounds, much closer than the beck.
The scientific name for the genus containing the three species of house martin (Common (our one), Asian and Nepal) is Delichon. I was very amused to find out that this name was made up in the mid 19th century (when the house martins were recognised to be significantly different from the swallows (Hirundo)), because it was an anagram (or a sort of spoonerism) of the ancient Greek word Chelidon, meaning a swallow.
These ones are probably feeding chicks in the nest by now, in which case they will be working as hard as they can to catch lots of flying insects to bring back for their babies.
Hello and welcome to my new blog. It will be a collection of many different things, including some or all of: descriptions of the nature around me where I live in North Ormesby, Middlesbrough, UK; accounts of trips and travels around the region, the country and the world; my thoughts about nature, conservation, faith, social justice, politics (maybe, if I feel brave/stupid), science; being in hospital, living with cancer and having chemotherapy; music, art and literature; beer!
I didn't know what the words for swift and martin were in Greek so I went to Google translate and they are both translated as χελιδόνι (helidoni), which is the same as the word for swallow!
ReplyDeleteHi Rob. This is really interesting. There will be modern Geeek names for all the individual species that ornithologists and birders use (there will be some of the latter in Greece although possibly not very many). The scientists may just use the ‘Latin’ names but the birders will almost certainly have Greek names for each species. I can’t find a list online but all the lists are probably in Greek. There is this organisation, which you might be interested in joining at some point : https://www.birdlife.org/europe-and-central-asia/partners/greece-hellenic-ornithological-society-hos. It seems to be the Greek equivalent of the RSPB
DeleteAlso, another interesting thing is that the seabird which goes by the English name of Gull-billed Tern, has the scientific name Gelochelidon nilotica, meaning apparently, Laughing Swallow from the Nile
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