Today I have a rather handsome boy for you, the Eurasian Golden Oriole (Oriolus oriolus).
These are little migratory birds that winter in South Africa and summer in Europe. The word ‘oriole’ derives from the Latin aureolus, meaning golden. So, technically they’re the Golden Golden. Given their taxonomic name is Oriolus oriolus, I guess someone really wanted us to know they’re golden.
And to be fair, they are pretty golden. The females are less distinctive, having more of a green tinge. Nevertheless, they’re quite shy birds and despite their bright colours are famously difficult to spot as they hide high in the upper canopy.
The Golden Oriole did, however, help us better understand migratory behaviour in birds. For a long time, the concept that birds migrated at all was controversial. People knew they disappeared during winter, but there was no agreement on if they were hibernating or migrating. It wasn’t until the 1700s that the consensus shifted to migration.
In part, this was thanks to the work of German ornithologist, Johann Andreas Naumann. He kept a small number of Golden Orioles in an aviary and noticed that in July they would becoming increasingly agitated and restless. They would fly back and forth within their cage of an evening and continued to do this night after night until November. Then, when March rolled around the next year, they would do it all again.
Based on this restlessness, Johann believed the birds were displaying an urge to migrate. Given how long this restlessness lasted, he speculated that wherever it was they wanted to go, it must have been a long way away. He predicted Africa and today, we know that to be true.
The word he used to describe this restless urge to migrate was ‘zugunruhe’. Today, it is still the term ornithologists use. Of course, many questions remained: how did they know it was time to migrate; how did they know where to go; if you put a bird on a plane and flew it to its destination would it still display zugunruhe? The story of how we learned about migratory behaviour is a long and fascinating one, and maybe one day I’ll get around to telling it. But for now, you only need to know one thing:
Zugunruhe: from the German ‘zug’ to move, and ‘unruhe’ restless anxiety. And that is our fun word for the week … zugunruhe.
17/01/2021
Bird of the Week 