Burt Guttman beat me to the gun! But here is some additional info from
the OED. The word origin for shitepoke is wholly U.S. in origin, with
the two words coming together only in our fine country. The OED gives
"shikepoke" as a regional variant as well. Threebirds are used as
examples by the OED: green heron, black-crowned night-heron, and
bittern. With the other colloquial usages, it seems we could e-mail Van
Remsen with some changes:
Green Heron Little Green Shitepoke
B-c Night Heron Tuxedoed Shitepoke
Am. Bittern Brown Reed Shitepoke
Gr. Blue Heron Great Blue Shitepoke
Haven't figured out what to do with the egrets yet. Too much fun!

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Ray Korpi
rkorpi at clark.edu
Wrk: Clark College
Vancouver, WA
Hm: Portland, OR
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