More a riddle this time than a question:
What is the next bird name in the series “Sparrow, Pigeon, Duck…”? There may be more than one defensible answer to this one, so explain your solution.
The first correct answer, and the “best” incorrect answer, will be rewarded with a modest prize from WINGS. Leave your answer as a comment to this blog entry!
Well this one looked easy enough at first glance. Old-timers like me first learned American Kestrel, Merlin, and Peregrine Falcon as Sparrow Hawk, Pigeon Hawk, and Duck Hawk. So the series may be one of prefixes for the names of hawks. Next in line, especially if we are talking about old-timer names for hawks, could be FISH (Osprey). Isn’t that neat!
But wait a second — the setter of the riddle specified the next “bird name” in the series. And “fish” is not a bird, even old-timers know that
A likely answer is CRANE. Sparrow Hawk, Pigeon Hawk and Duck Hawk are still reasonably common in the ABA area (not that the riddle setter ever mentions the ABA area specifically); Crane Hawk is a Mexican, Central American and South American bird, with very few ABA-area records. But I kind of think it fits.
As a clincher — well, a suggestion, anyway — Sparrow, Pigeon, Duck, and Crane present a progression of increasing size.
So what’s next in line? Cuckoo-Hawk and Harrier-Hawk are both hyphenated and the wrong size to boot. Is there an “Elephant Hawk” anywhere in the world?
Gyr
…Hawk, …Hawk,…Duck, …Falcon
An equally likely answer would be “Chicken”, from another old name for Red-tailed Hawk — Chicken Hawk.
Well I suppose I would go with the progression of alternate names of increasingly large falcons. Sparrow Hawk, Pigeon Hawk, Duck Hawk, and PARTRIDGE HAWK. The latter is an alternate name for the Gyrfalcon.
Maybe it is a backwards progression of well known extinctions. If so the next bird name is auk, as in Great Auk.
Here is the sequence, latest extinction first:
Merritt Island Sparrow
Passenger Pigeon
Laborador Duck
Great Auk
Somewhere in there New England lost its Heath Hen too, but I think it was between the duck and the pigeon.
Marsh. Then the sequence is old bird of prey names, ascending in size order, for, if I recall correctly, Sharpie, Merlin, Peregrine and Northern Harrier.