FOLLOWING my recent notes about the North Riding dialect names, especially for the hedgehog, a reader has asked about dialect names for some wild birds. He added that his bird feeders are visited by stoggies. I’m sure he would have told us that spuggies were also regular callers, then he might have noticed a French linney or a cuddy.

Stoggies are wood pigeons, spuggies are house sparrows, French linney is an old name for a brambling, while cuddy is a hedge sparrow, otherwise known as dunnock or hedge accentor. The words linney and spink were used to indicate the finch family. Green linney, for example, is greenfinch and white linney is chaffinch, once known as bull-spink. I’ve often wondered whether this really refers to the bullfinch because cherry-spink is hawfinch and gold-spink is goldfinch.

Many dialect names for birds have been neglected but around my childhood village in the North York Moors an interesting selection remains in use by older residents. Moor birds, pronounced as moor bods, is a name for red grouse; nanpie or lang-tailed nan refers to the magpie and peckatree is woodpeckers with yaffle being a green woodpecker.

One bird with several names is the handsome green plover, which can still be seen in reduced numbers in open fields, moorland and estuaries. I’ve often noticed them on RSPB reserves where they have joined other waders.

In my youth, green plovers were plentiful and easily identified by the slender but prominent crest, black and white markings, orange patch beneath its tail and dark glossy green upper plumage. It is formally known as the lapwing but our local name was peewit. That is said to represent its call but in dialect it was often pronounced as teeafit, tuefit or tewit. Recently, peewit numbers have declined and this is attributed to agricultural changes and loss of damp grasslands.

Hullots and yullots were names for owls although they were qualified with other additions. For example, a long-horned yullot meant ong-eared owl, while the tawny owl was a jinny-yullot. A barn owl was screech-yullot although it was often known simply as ullot or yowlet. In parts of the moors, particularly the Cleveland Hills, it was called chech-ullot, meaning church owl. This was due to its habit of roosting in church towers.

There has been a general reduction in owl numbers, barn owls in

particular and they enjoy special protection. This decline was due to the accumulation of pesticides in their food, but also a shortage of suitable nesting sites.

One bird known as the fern owl is not an owl – this is the nightjar, a nocturnal bird with a churring kind of call, likened by some to a small electric motor in action. Its other names include night-hawk, goatsucker, night crow and Gabriel-ratchet, the latter arising from its ghost-like manoeuvres at night.

Members of the wagtail family were generally willy-wagtails with the yellow wagtail being yalla-willy-wagtail and the pied wagtail being referred to as white willy-wagtail or white watter-waggy. Sometimes the pied wagtail was known simply as water-wagtail.

Friendly names were given to some birds such tom-tit for the great tit, billy blue cap for the blue tit and dicky-devlin for swift. Blackbirds were simply blackies, thrushes were throstles and the mistle thrush was jeremy-joy.

Kestrels were called redhawks or sometimes standhawks from their practice of hovering in one place, while hunting food; buzzards were gleds and sparrow hawks were bliew hawks.

Crows and rooks were collectively known as crukes. The rook, with a white patch at the base of its beak, was a white-nebbed cruke, while a black-nebbed cruke or perhaps dowp meant carrion crow. Not surprisingly a scarecrow was a flaycruke - flay means to scare away. After all, scarecrows are really intended to frighten rooks so that old name is probably the most apt. Even now, rooks seeking morsels in a field are widely referred to as crows. If there is a flock of them, they will be rooks; singly or in pairs usually means crows. Rooks and crows are not identical.

In some cases, pleasing nicknames are given to our wild birds – the dipper or water ouzel is sometimes willy-fisher or bessy-ducker whilst those charming puffins one sees on coast cliffs are tommy-noddies or sometimes sea parrots.

The reason for some names is not immediately evident – for example, why call the curlew a whaup, and why is a widgeon (a type of duck) known as the whew-duck? The male was often called the pendlewhew and the female was grasswhew. And why would the tiny dabchick (the little grebe) be known as Tom-pudding? Its other name is dipper-duck which is far more descriptive.

I like the practice of referring to a blackbird with affection as awd blackie. I can understand that.