I understand the scientific name is same - Bonasa umbellus.
Today I noticed all my Ruffed Grouse observations on iNat are labelled with this new common name (Birch Partridge). I searched the WWW far and wide for info on this but can find nothing. The only place in the Universe I can find a Ruffed Grouse renamed a Birch Partridge is here on iNat. Whats up with that? Any explanation how that got renamed? Is there some bird official committee that changed it? Or is it just an iNat thing?
I’ve encountered a dozen vernacular (and often misleading) names for Bonasa umbellus : birch partridge, pat, drummer, drumming grouse, long-tailed grouse, pheasant, mountain pheasant, partridge, pine hen, tippet, white-flesher, willow grouse, wood grouse, and woods pheasant
I know that “bonasa’ comes from Latin and roughly means “good roast”.
I have no ideas on the renaming of your observations.
I see Birch Partridge is listed as the “New Brunswick” name. I assume you’re located there and the name takes priority for you - not sure how easy it is to opt out of that though :)
For situations like this, it’s best to go to the taxon page, in this case:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/890-Bonasa-umbellus
and raise a flag for curation by clicking the “Curation” button on the right hand side.
You can ask about the name and whether it is appropriate. If you click on the Taxonomy tab, you can see what @reosarevok was referring to (that the name “Birch Partridge” is listed as a priority name for New Brunswick). This change is recent, so if you think it is inappropriate, you can ask curators to remove that priority which would keep the name in iNat’s system (which is fine as long as it is in use), but not be the display name.
Since this is an issue that should be handled on iNat itself, I’m going to close the thread.
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