BirdNote; Robin Orange-breast?

BirdNote®

Robin Orange-breast?

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

[European Robin song, https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/120050821, 0.40-.42 and 0.47-.49]

Consider the European Robin. Europe’s robin is a familiar songbird of English gardens. It has long been known by nicknames: from the mid-1500s as Robin Redbreast and, for centuries earlier, simply Redbreast.

But if you look closely, the European Robin’s breast isn’t red. It’s actually a distinctly orange color. So why “Redbreast” and not, you know, “Orange-breast”?

It may be because the word “orange” just wasn’t an option when the bird was named. Oranges — the fruit — first arrived in England in the 1300s. But it wasn’t until the 1500s that the word “orange” was used in England to describe a color. The English word came from a French word, which was derived from an even earlier Arabic or Persian word, where the fruit first came from.

By the time “orange” entered wide-spread use, Redbreast was long established as the bird’s name. And traditional names tend to stick. “Robin”, a common nickname, was added later.

And in the New World, the name stuck, too. Early settlers in North America named the similar orange-breasted birds they encountered here, the American* Robin.

[American Robin call, [https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/115368551, 0.01-.03]

Today’s show brought to you by the Bobolink Foundation.

For BirdNote, I’m Michael Stein.

###

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by K Haddad ML120050821 and P Marvin ML115368551.

BirdNote’s theme composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.

Producer: John Kessler; Managing Producer: Jason Saul; Associate Producer: Ellen Blackstone

© 2019 Tune In to Nature.org February 2019 Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# EURROB-02-2019-02-12 EURROB-02

References: https://www.etymonline.com/word/robin

http://mentalfloss.com/article/29942/which-came-first-orange-color-or-or...

Re history of name

http://tailsofbirding.blogspot.com/2011/07/robin-redbreast.html?m=1

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_robin