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

The translation is that stoggies are wood pigeons, spuggies are housesparrows, French linney is an old name for a brambling while a hedge sparrow, otherwise known as dunnock or hedge accentor, is a cuddy.

The words linney and spink were widely used to indicate the finch family. A green linney, for example, is a greenfinch and a white linney is a chaffinch, once known as a bull-spink.

I’ve often wondered whether this should refer to the bullfinch because a cherry-spink is a hawfinch and a gold-spink is a goldfinch.

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

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

Certainly in my youth, green plovers were plentiful and were easily identified by the slender but very 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.

This name is said to represent its familiar call but in our dialect its name was often pronounced as teeafit, tuefit or tewit.

In recent years, peewit numbers have declined and this has been attributed to agricultural changes and a loss of damp grasslands, Hullots and yullots were general names for all owls although the names were qualified with other additions.

For example, a long-horned yullot meant a long-eared owl while the more widely known tawny owl was a jinny-yullot. A barn owl was a screech-yullot although it was often known simply as an ullot or yowlet.

In some parts of the moors, particularly the Cleveland Hills, it was called a chech-ullot, meaning a church owl. This was due to its habit of roosting in church towers.

There seems to have been a general reduction in owl numbers, barn owls in particular, and they now enjoy special protection.

This decline was largely due to accumulations of pesticides in their food, but another problem was a shortage of suitable nesting sites.

One bird known as the fern owl is not an owl – this is one name for the nightjar, a nocturnal bird with a churring kind of call, likened by some as a small electric motor in action.

Its other names included nighthawk, goatsucker, night crow and Gabriel-ratchet, the latter arising from its ghost-like manoeuvres in the darkness.

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

Blackbirds were known simply as blackies, thrushes were throstles and the mistle thrush was a jeremy- joy.

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

Crows and rooks were collectively known as crukes. The rook, with a white patch at the base of its beak, was called a white-nebbed cruke while a black-nebbed cruke or perhaps a dowp meant carrion crow.

Not surprisingly a scarecrow was a flaycruke – flay means to scare.

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 called willy-fisher or bessy-ducker while those charming puffins one sees on coast cliffs are tommynoddies 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 known as 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.

Dogs in heaven

There are dogs in heaven, one example of which can make its appearance at any time of year as the sun either sets or rises. These curious phenomena are known as sun dogs and resemble the remnants of a rainbow.

I noticed one recently as the sun was sinking and it repeated its presence a few days later. It was a bright patch of colour – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet – and was sitting on the edge of a cloud as the sun sank in the west. Sun dogs are best seen when the sun is low in the sky, either rising or setting.

If you see one, stretch your arm towards it with the hand vertical and fingers spread wide. If you place your thumb over the sun, the sun dog will be at the tip of your little finger at an angle of 22 degrees.

This works equally well with left or right hands because sun dogs can appear to the right or left of the sun. There can be times when the sun forms the centre-point of a huge circle with two sun dogs, one to the left and the other to the right. However, a sun dog is a completely natural phenomenon but they have led to a piece of weather lore adopted by sailors. It said: “A dog in the morning, sailor take warning; a dog in the night is the sailor’s delight.”