Q. I notice you sometimes include scientific names of animals in your columns. One time you identified a timber rattlesnake; another time, two turtles (an Alabama redbelly turtle and a stinkpot).

Stephen Hampton has been watching birds for more than 50 years, and for almost all of that time, he thought nothing of names like Townsend’s warbler or Anna’s hummingbird: “They were just the names in ...