The American Ornithological Society has committed to changing the English names of birds named after a person, replacing them with more descriptive names, reasoning that many of the people honored by a bird name were unworthy. For example, there is McCown’s Longspur, named after a Confederate general and slavery enthusiast. Some people might be affronted by that association. Others are offended that the name had to be changed, because nothing should change, and people are too damn sensitive. These same people are, by pure coincidence, able to stand in someone’s private field pointing binoculars into the woods without once imagining they’d be rounded up by the constabulary and/or shot.

Anyway, it’s the thick-billed longspur now. Suck it, JoJo.

The good ol’ Great Blue Heron will keep its name on account of its obvious greatness and blueness, but as long as we’re in the mood I’d make a case for Shitepoke. I will probably not prevail because the same term is used for green herons and cormorants and before long you’re calling things the greater shitepoke, lesser shitepoke, and steaming shitepoke, and some evolutionary taxonomist is going to whine about them not being related. Nevertheless, all those birds have a thumpingly enthusiastic waste evacuation system; one good stream from a Namibian heron could knock down a whole family of meerkats in one strafe.

I will have to learn to live without the Brewster’s Warbler, which was not named after me, but well before me. These days, you can forget getting a bird named after you unless your name is Olive, Rufous, or Flammulated.

The idea is to get rid of all eponymous names, even if they refer to perfectly okay historical personages, just to keep things on the up and up and reduce conflict. I will miss the Blackburnian Warbler. It is one of the few birds named after a woman and she wasn’t icky at all. Anna Blackburne was a botanist, primarily, but she did collect other natural items, such as the bird skins her brother sent her from America. That’s how ornithologists used to study birds: by shooting them so they can get a good closeup view. Anna sent her deceased bird to a bird expert and he, rather than naming it the Bullet-Riddled Fluffster, decided to name it after Anna. Anna’s hummingbird was named after a whole different Anna, and she’ll probably have to go too. All she did wrong was marry an ornithologist, which at worst makes her ick-adjacent.

I think it’s a swell idea to rename birds for their appearance or behavior, and it could even be helpful in identifying the little bastards. Problem is, people have already proved to be bad at it. The red-bellied woodpecker has a red head, but “red-headed woodpecker” was already taken. Its belly is at best a little soiled-looking. You’re not going to see a ring on a ring-necked duck at all unless you stretch its neck out (not recommended) or it’s dead. The female cowbird has no distinguishing features whatsoever but that’s no reason to name her after a dumpy ungulate. The female black-throated green warbler has no black throat, so she’s basically just being dismissed as a “Mrs.,” and the so-called “green” of either sex would scandalize a parakeet.

All of which makes bird identification even harder for a rank amateur with a brain like a steel colander, such as myself. But in a recent trip to Maine, a state not known for harboring any Invisible Rails, I totally did not see an invisible rail. I’m counting that as a win.