…I’m pleased that the roadrunner got it’s name on the books. I’m bemused to learn that its species name is Geococcyx californianus. Dudes! We’re taking over!
(Isn’t anyone else worried about that?)
Rhode Island Red. How can you bash a bird that provides one of the crucial ingredients for omelets?
I’m not thrilled with Wisconsin’s Robin -not a bad bird, but not exactly inspiring. I think Whooping Crane, Great Blue Heron, or something else would be better.
The State fossil (Trilobite), State dog (American water spaniel), and State rock (Red granite) are better
Brian
Louisiana picked the Brown Pelican which is just about perfect for the state.
Now, see, that’s badass. I love tarantula hawks.
So what’s the state, and what does that refer to?
New Mexico and chile.
Geococcyx? Rock butt? It sounds so much less tasty now.
I’m in NJ and am pretty happy with ours. I get goldfinches at my feeder and they’re about the nicest birds I get to see on a regular basis.
Now our state song situation, that’s shameful.
Yeah, Oregon’s is the Western Meadowlark too. The WM must have had a hell of a lobbyist back in the day.
No. I have Quicktime issues. I’ll look around and see if I can find another recording of the dove.
I’ll try to record the quail next time they are calling around my house.
For those who may be interested, it just means ‘ground cuckoo’. The bone is called the coccyx because it looks like a cuckoo’s beak. (Why a cuckoo and not one of the umpteen other birds with a similar beak, I don’t know.)
I agree. I saw so many magpies when I was there last week! I don’t remember seeing so many when I lived there 20 years ago, but it could just be that I didn’t notice birds so much until I married a man who was interested in them.
Am I happy with our National bird?
Hmmmm. We have cooler birds like the Kea (the world’s only alpine parrot and possibly the world’s most intelligent bird), more common birds like the Tui (whose voice is incredible) and rarer birds like the Kakapo (less then 200 of these flightless parrots exist), yet the Kiwi is our National bird.
But it’s not about the bird so much. It’s our identity. The shy, long beaked, nocturnal bird that most NZer’s have only seen in captivity was the origin. I’m not sure why and it doesn’t really matter anymore.
New Zealanders are Kiwis.
Kiwi are birds that have many unique characteristics.
Kiwifruit are a fruit that should never be called kiwi.
The unique silhouette of the Kiwi means New Zealand.
Am I happy with my national bird? Yes.
(except when Americans insist on calling that fuzzy brown fruit a kiwi!.)
A simple lesson. A grape is not the same thing as a grapefruit. A Kiwi is not the samething as a kiwifruit!
We get to decide, we invented the name! 
I live in Western Australia and our state bird is the black swan. They’re pretty badass and only native to our corner of the continent, so they’re cool AND appropriate.
I’m happy with it. I know my state is large enough that the state bird isn’t going to be something that’s dominant everywhere in the state.
Funnily enough, I see a lot more cardinals here.
Peru’s official bird is the Cok-of-the-rock (can you get a manlier name?) , OK.
Unofficially it’s the Andean condor, kickass.