pyrrhuloxia
Aug. 16th, 2018 08:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordpyrrhuloxia (pir-uh-LOK-see-uh) - n., a medium-sized songbird (Cardinalis sinuatus) of the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico with gray and red plumage, a prominent crest, and a short, thick bill.
Looks a LOT like a cardinal that's been partially painted an olive-gray -- and it is, indeed, a very close cousin and sometimes called desert cardinal. The bill is thicker than a cardinal's, looking almost like a parrot's:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
The name is kinda odd: it's the former genus name, coined from Pyrrhula, a finch genus (from Greek pyrrhoúlas, which was an uncertain flame-colored bird, possibly a bullfinch, from purrhos, red, from pur, fire) + Loxia, a crossbill genus (from Greek loxos, oblique). As an aside, I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce the Navajo name for it.
---L.
Looks a LOT like a cardinal that's been partially painted an olive-gray -- and it is, indeed, a very close cousin and sometimes called desert cardinal. The bill is thicker than a cardinal's, looking almost like a parrot's:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
The name is kinda odd: it's the former genus name, coined from Pyrrhula, a finch genus (from Greek pyrrhoúlas, which was an uncertain flame-colored bird, possibly a bullfinch, from purrhos, red, from pur, fire) + Loxia, a crossbill genus (from Greek loxos, oblique). As an aside, I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce the Navajo name for it.
---L.
