A black-capped chickadee by any other name is a Poecile atricapillus. That’s the bird’s scientific name, the reference used worldwide to avoid the confusion a list of local names could offer. For ...

Say goodbye to Bachman’s Sparrow, Scott’s Oriole and Townsend’s Warbler. Those three birds are among a half-dozen that will get renamed first under a plan by the American Ornithological Society to do ...

"Common" may be defined as communal and cooperating or prevalent, well-known and everyday. But there are also not so pleasant connotations: mediocre, inferior, lowborn or vulgar. None of the above ...