You will remember that I have a theory that the majority of Spaniards classify birds into just three types:1: Pajaros are biggish birds like blackbirds and pigeons. Pajaro in English translates as bird.
2: Pajaritos are smallish robin or sparrow sized birds. This is just the word pajaro with the termination -ito which is used for diminutives. An English example might be book and booklet or pig and piglet where the -let suggests something smaller.
3: Pato is used for birds with webbed feet, swimming birds like geese and swans. Pato translates directly as duck.
On more than one occasion I have asked a Spaniard to identify a bird, for instance, what I now know is a hoopoe or, maybe, I describe a magpie and and ask for the Spanish word for such a bird. The answer to both questions is pajaro. I find this amusing. Obviously my observation is partially true at best; there are lots of Spaniards who know birds. However, I have never been one to let the truth get in the way of a good story.
So, a little while ago I read a book about Magellan sailing around the world for the first time, proving that the Atlantic and Pacific were linked. Actually Magellan was killed in the Philippines but, the at one time mutinous, Juan Sebastián Elcano brought the Victoria home to complete that first ever circumnavigation.
In the book there is a quote which I recognised as endorsing my view. Magellan's boats, or ships if you prefer, were looking for a way through the waterway which is now called the Straits of Magellan. Part of the sentence in the book says "Exploran otras dos con igual resulatado: la bahía de los Patos, llamada así porque abundan en ella los pingüinos..." or, in English, "They explore two more (bays) with the same result: Duck Bay, so called because in it the penguins were so abundant.."
So, you see, historical, geographical and literary precedent.
