bokmakierie

[prettygoodword]

bokmakierie (bok-muh-KI-ree) - n., a bushshrike (Telephorus zeylonus) of southern Africa.



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A striking yellow fellow. We got the name from Afrikaans, which got it imitating the mating duet -- the male calls bok and the female immediately replies bok-mak-kik. Or something like that. Here's a recording.

---L.

Comments

[pauraque]

My dad has birded in South Africa and has this one on his life list. I remember we talked about the imitative name. It's hard for me to hear the similarity, but of course all imitative bird names are a bit loose, as well as influenced by the phonotactics of the namers' language.

[prettygoodword]

The onomatopoeia is a bit of stretch for me here as well.