Great Bird Names

One of the ancillary pleasures of birding is the common names of birds. I've spent hours scrolling through the species list on eBird, finding funny, weird names of birds. Some of them are highly, one might say, overly descriptive, some are opaque. Below is a list, in no special order (except for the cisticolas) of some of my favorites:

Perplexing Scrubwren
Mysterious Starling (Extinct)
Monotonous Lark
Elusive Antpitta
Inaccessible Island Finch
Inaccessible Island Rail (If the island is inaccessible, how do they know about the birds?)
Invisible Rail (sightings: 0)
 
Cisticolas: (Birds with check marks are one I have seen)

Bubbling

Chattering

Chirping

Churring

üCroaking   

Foxy

Piping

üRattling

Siffling

Singing

Tinkling

Trilling

Wailing

Whistling

Winding

üWing-snapping

üZitting

 
 
Happy Wren
Strange Weaver
Obscure Berrypecker
Twite (Banding code: TWIT)
Aberrant Bush-Warbler
Leaf-love
Melancholy Woodpecker
Monotonous Lark
Fearful Owl
Supertramp Fantail
Cinderella Waxbill
Exclamatory Paradise-Whydah
Vampire Ground-Finch