We gots to stop the racism in naming birds

HawkTheSlayer wrote:

Red Lily wrote:The only birds I eat are chickens.  

I prefer turkey. Lol. Chicken is good too.
Nothing has the flavor of wild duck, though.

Casey Jones wrote:

2cent wrote:

Casey Jones wrote:

HawkTheSlayer wrote:Blackbirds are very tasty in a gravy or smothered down with onions. We ate them all the time when I was a kid. My grandma would smother them down and add some homemade plum wine.

They were delicious.

What are "Blackbirds"?

Crows?  Magpies?  Cormorans?

Blackbirds are just that; blackbirds.  As in, "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie."  Capiche?  Then, there's also red-winged blackbirds. (The wings are not red; just the underneath  that you can't see until they fly up.  The red is striking.) Also, "Bicolored," Brewer's, Rusty, Tricolored, an Yellow-headed.  <--Those are all the several types of blackbirds.  IOW, they do not belong in the crow family, nor vice~verse.  

Of Magpies, there are 3 types that I'm aware of:  American, Black-billed, and Yellow-billed.  Nope, they're not 'blackbirds', either.

Cormorants are a northern water bird that I'm not familiar with.  There's several kinds, though. Again, not related to blackbirds.

IOW, "Blackbirds" is a species, not a general term inclusive of all birds that have black on them.

Appreciative of the instruction.  I know little about birds, beyond my own observation.

Crows, are of course, the black sheep of the avian family.  Plain...and bad eating...but incredibly intelligent.  Crows are one of the few animals who actually understand the use of tools - they've proved it in a number of observations and tests.  Crows can learn words - how many know that?  A parrot is eager to learn words, to mimic.  A crow, less so - because, probably, a crow has much more going on in his life.  But he can, and occasionally, will.

Cormorants (appreciate the spelling correction) I know nothing about, except:  When I would take trains into Canada when working with the Wisconsin Central/CN, and go across the rail bridge at Saulte Ste Marie...that bridge was LOUSY with what my co-workers (all outdoorsmen) identified as cormorants.  To me, they were just big black birds who felt the need to eliminate as that noisy red-and-white beast passed under them on their perch on the bridge.  I thought they looked a lot like crows.  Crows, FWIW, like being near water, too, although they're not strictly waterfowl.   When I got to know the crows I did, it was on a lakeshore.  They liked their fishing, and liked the dead fish washing up, too.

I always thought "blackbirds" was another name for one of these crow-like birds - big and black and bad-eating.  Putting a bunch of crows in a pie to mock the King would have been the stuff of subversive nursery rimes of centuries earlier, I'd think.

HawkTheSlayer wrote:

2cent wrote:

Casey Jones wrote:

HawkTheSlayer wrote:Blackbirds are very tasty in a gravy or smothered down with onions. We ate them all the time when I was a kid. My grandma would smother them down and add some homemade plum wine.

They were delicious.

What are "Blackbirds"?

Crows?  Magpies?  Cormorans?

Blackbirds are just that; blackbirds.  As in, "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie."  Capiche?  Then, there's also red-winged blackbirds. (The wings are not red; just the underneath  that you can't see until they fly up.  The red is striking.) Also, "Bicolored," Brewer's, Rusty, Tricolored, an Yellow-headed.  <--Those are all the several types of blackbirds.  IOW, they do not belong in the crow family, nor vice~verse.  

Of Magpies, there are 3 types that I'm aware of:  American, Black-billed, and Yellow-billed.  Nope, they're not 'blackbirds', either.

Cormorants are a northern water bird that I'm not familiar with.  There's several kinds, though. Again, not related to blackbirds.

IOW, "Blackbirds" is a species, not a general term inclusive of all birds that have black on them.

There's a reason why they call a rueful come-uppance, "Eating Crow."

Yes, there is.  

The term eat crow is uniquely American in origin. Its first known use dates back to the 19th century when eating a crow required intense boiling to make it palatable. But, even then, it was like eating garbage because they’re carrion-eating birds, so their meat is disgusting.

https://grammarist.com/idiom/eat-crow/

As in, being fed your arrogance isn't very palatable.  

Red Wings are plentiful in the rice fields. They are considered crop depredators and you can shoot all you want.
But why waste them?

If one eats dove or quail and likes it,  one will like blackbirds..

Robins taste better but that's a no-no.