My recent trip out "west" was a reminder of how a mere 500-mile difference in habitat changes the very birds. Well, sort of, since the old French saying, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" still rings true, as similar niches are taken over by different, but closely related, birds. Mountain Bluebirds rather than Eastern Bluebirds, for instance. The Bullock's replaces the Baltimore Oriole; the Spotted becomes surrogate for the Eastern Towhee; the Violet-Green Swallow zips over the lake instead of the Tree Swallow. In the place of (mostly) White-Breasted Nuthatches, I see/hear (more of) the Red-breasted species. No more Eastern Meadowlarks at all—only Western. Lazuli instead of Indigo Buntings. (One notable exception: Eastern Kingbirds are still more common than the Western variety, here in Western SoDak: they are the true "tyrant flycatchers" in that sibling rivalry!—as the many pecks to the head they've given me in one lifetime prove.)
Two other western/Black Hills species reminded me of something else (besides the fact that I used to write poems)—the ornithological names of birds are often themselves acts of Western imperialism:
TWO BIRDS MEET LEWIS & CLARK (1805-1806)
--TCG, 6/23/07
I: Lewis's Woodpecker 
They call me Lewis's Woodpecker.
I didn't choose that name, but after millennia of me
hammering at the dead wood of these pine hills . . .
they came: with maps, and a native woman, and a
whole mind's-load of old world naturalist terms & knowledge.
In fact, I guess my real name is Latin now, but I can't even
begin to pronounce it—so just call me "Lewie," after that
guy who kept looking around and writing things down, in a
fine script, as if he were capturing my feathered soul.
I heard that he killed himself, only a few years later.
Why he did is beyond my understanding, but then,
I am only a bird.
II: Clark's Nutcracker 
Well, this Lewis fellow's sidekick was named Clark, and so
here I am, or how you know me. The only thing else you
need to know, apparently, is that I crack open
pine cones for a living.
But did you also know that my nickname is "camp robber"?
Yes, tourists, I'll steal your picnic table blind. But hey, that's
nothing, compared to what Lewis &
Clark started here, halfway on the
way to stealing a continent.
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