Terminator (T2) from Brandon is back in Grand Forks but last I heard she hadn't acquired a beau yet.
Terminator sounds like such a masculine name. And Ivy is a male. What is the origin/reasoning to these names? Not complaining; curious!
Okay, first, names for birds ... we don't always name the birds, actually, in our Project, most of our birds are not named. Ones that return or have distinct personalities or if we are in the mood (or have a webcam on them) get named.
Sometimes the names are just names - like Lucy (Ivy's sister), she was named by one of our young fans who was with us when we banded her. She just thought the chick looked like a Lucy. The 2007 chicks were named for winds because it was a windy (very windy) year, hence Hurricane, Chinook, Mistral & Taku. Terminator is named as such because a) she was the fighter when we banded the chicks and b) her band number is T2 like the second Terminator movie - and easy mnemonic
Ivy's name is dynastic - Pop was our first resident male in the province and at the Radisson - the Daddy (and grand, great, etc) of all our Manitoba birds - Pop sounded better than Dad and it sort of went better with Maud. T-Rex was one of four male chicks in the first nest to Pop (and Maud) at the Radisson. He came by his name honestly when at least three years later he was attacking my boss (we were banding the his chicks) at the time - the first Jurassic Park was out and my boss' sons had taken him to the movie as his Father's Day present a couple of days before. T-Rex was the smallest of all our males and the most, lets say, "hands on" of all our birds. What he aimed for, he hit and he hit everyone who came near his chicks both at the University of Manitoba and at the Radisson. His band number was also 1/X so it was (again) easy to associate with the name. Trey is T-Rex's son and the third in the Radisson dynastic line - trois would have been most appropriate (Radisson III) but went with tres/tre/tres (Italian/Latin/Spanish) instead and modified the spelling (had a crush on him even then
). Ivy is, you guessed it - Radisson IV - so Ivy, also, as I recall, his band number was not somthing we could find a mnemonic easily for.
Other names:
Madame - only polite part of what I called her when I was trying to read her band or check her eggs (pre-webcam days).
Radisson - her band band is R7, R and seven more letters and yes, she came from the Radisson - actually, the nestledge in 2006.
Alley - the only place I could ever see her from was anyone of the backlanes around the Hotel - girl had a thing about obscure corners on the backs of buildings.
Heather - daughter of Brandon's Holly and her band number was H7 I believe, so Heather. She injured herself not long after fledging and went into care and I think they changed her name (not sure why) but she remains Heather in our records.
Sherpa - chick kept climbing out of the nestbox way (WAY) before he should have. He was an only chick, actually the only chick after the first nest was lost so he kept trying to follow Madame and Trey when they left him. Way scary little bird. Flew early too - had to get the police to help me access a construction site on a long weekend to retrieve him. Put him back up on the Hotel and he was fine. Came back the next year, then the year after and I thought here's the next male in town, but he crashed into a fence while hunting and died. Pity, he was a great little bird, reminded me very much of Trey and T-Rex.
There are of course more, but you get the picture. I've been involved/running the project for a long time, so I've named/been involved in name most the chicks. In the early years, birds weren't name as a general rule, scientific detachment and all that. I must admit that I started purely to be able to tell the stories. And I have no idea where the names come from, but they do all seem appropriate in the end. Many's the time I'm convinced we don't name them at all ....