The identity of the bird known locally in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Norfolk, United Kingdom, as the Spowe

• Published in: Archives of Natural History
• Main Authors: Cooke, F., Birkhead, T. R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh University Press 2017
• Subjects: Numenius phaeopus; Whimbrel
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/anh.2017.0419; https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full-xml/10.3366/anh.2017.0419

In the kitchen record books of the L'Estrange family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there are references to a bird, widely shot on the Norfolk coast, called a Spowe. On the basis of the similarity to the Icelandic name, J. H. Gurney (sen.) and Fisher (in their “An account of birds found in Norfolk” published in 1846) assumed this to be the Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) as have all ornithological texts ever since. Internal evidence from the kitchen records strongly suggest that the Spowe was a winter visitor, not a passage migrant, thus throwing considerable doubt on Gurney and Fisher's ascription. We suggest that it is much more likely that the Spowe was the Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica).