Clay colored sparrow - What's in a name?

 The clay-coloured sparrow is a bit of an oddball for the sparrow family.  The reason has to do with its unusual voice.  I wouldn't call it singing, it's more of a buzzing sound.  To be honest, when I first heard one I thought there were adult cicadas in the area.  These long-lived insects are renowned for their loud, continuous serenade emulating a screaming fire alarm.  That a bird, especially a sparrow, would sound like them, is astonishing.

The common names given to many sparrow species reflect some attribute of their biology or discoverer.  The white-throated and black-chinned sparrows are so named due to their physical appearance.  Bell's and Harris's sparrows are named after people.  The song sparrow achieved its moniker from its pleasant twitterings.  So, instead of using the somewhat drab title of "clay-coloured" for this bird I photographed, why couldn't it be named after its song too?

The first one that came to mind was the "buzz-saw sparrow".  Not only is it a more interesting name, but it also promotes vivid imagery of a multi-bladed disc spinning through the air, something that insect prey might sense as they are dispatched on wing by this member of the passeriform family.

Of course, it could be dubbed the "cicada sparrow" in honour of its unusual song, if you could call it that.  That would have helped me figure out its species much master; it wasn't until I read about the raspy call that I figured out what bird I had photographed.  People may get the wrong idea about the bird from the name though, after all, it doesn't really feed on cicadas nor does it burrow under the ground for up to seventeen years before venturing into the light again.

So, it seems that it will have to be stuck with "clay-coloured" as its name.  A sad testament to whoever named them.  Birds add so much to the ecosystem, to our joy of the outdoors, and to humanity in general.  You would think we could have come up with a better name.

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