Oh NO!
Has Australia adopted the American term?
On 06/19/2013 03:14 AM, Mike Carter wrote: > Fred was world famous for his observations on waders (which we now > call shorebirds)
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In which case of course the people who include “non-waders” in the group and take it to mean birds that fossick at the water’s edge are probably also correct!
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It’s not only the term ‘wader’ that confuses people. American birders I’ve been studying say they often use the term ‘birdwatcher’ when with folk who might not understand the term.
Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow PO Box 71, NT 0841 043 8650 835
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I’ve also found that members of the public are confused by the term “wader”. I’ve not experienced anything as bizarre as being called a member of a “Waiters’ Study Group” but I encountered organisers of a motor car racing event a few years ago who thought that a “wader survey” was a survey of people walking or bathing in shallow water. They didn’t understand why I was interested in studying peoples’ public bathing habits! After that incident I started using the term “shorebird”, because at least it contains the term “bird” within it.
Regards, Stephen
Stephen Ambrose Ryde NSW
Chris,
Many years ago I made a conscious decision to adopt the term, “shorebirds”. To me then they were “waders”, but I made myself change.
Focussed as I am/was on shorebird education, I stand before audiences who are not shorebird people. They are local government officers, developers and the general public. The term “waders” caused confusion, and often needed explanation, whereas “shorebirds” was immediately understood. And as I was in the business of communicating, I adopted the term most easily understood by my audiences. I didn’t care, as long as I could gain their attention, and not confuse them.
The day I was introduced to an audience as a member of the “Queensland Waiters’ Study Group”, I knew there was a problem with the word “waders”. I had mentioned the group over the phone, and that was how it was interpreted, and that’s what I became.
Cheers,
Jill
Jill Dening Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
26° 51′ 41″S 152° 56′ 00″E
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g’Day Chris
My thoughts exactly.
In the late 1950’s, the Bird Observers Club produced a magnificent booklet “Field Guide to the Waders”. And later, wader enthusiasts formed the Australian Wader Study Group. It was in the early 1960’s when Fred Smith first told me that the term “Shorebird was used in America to describe waders. By the mid 1960’s we would occasionally hear the term “shore bird” mainly when referring to the unabridged 1962 edition of a book “Life Histories of North American Shore Birds”. By late 1960’s a few wader enthusiasts had a copy of that book but most of us considered “shore bird” a foreign term used to describe waders if you were visiting the United States and otherwise, best ignored.
I had the impression it was just another Americanism and probably used by the same people who later referred to our Stone Curlews as “Thicknees”. I remember when I first heard the term Thicknee. Had a chuckle at the sad corruption of a great name. Most Ausies knew that a “thicknee” was not a bird at all; but a symptom of an exotic venereal disease brought home after an overseas deployment to Vietnam.
In a similar way the term “shore bird” is seen by some as a cringey term. But by the late 1990s “shore bird” had invaded our birding vocabulary. So much so now that if i mention waders to some of the more recent birding enthusiasts, they look back at me as though I just reported seeing a Pteranodon. Probably the shorebird word/words has crept into environmental learning courses more as a result that reflects the American origins of the many university lecturers in that field that have worked in Australia rather than any conscious decision to change from the proper Australian use of the term “waders” and “migratory waders” that should be used in Australia to describe birds of the order “Charadriiformes”. (alternative name Laro-Limicolae)
Ian May St Helens, Tasmania 0428337956
Chris Corben wrote:
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