The latter has a dim. Pyatt.
Rainbird is a local name for the green woodpecker, but as an East-Anglian name it is most likely an imitative form of Fr. Rimbaud or Raimbaud, identical with Anglo-Sax. Regenbeald. Knott is the name of a bird which frequents the sea-shore and, mindful of Cnut's wisdom, retreats nimbly before the advancing surf—
"The knot that called was Canutus' bird of old."
(Drayton, Polyolbion, xxv. 368.)
This historical connection is most probably due to folk-etymology. Titmus is of course for tit-mouse. Dialect names for the woodpecker survive in Speight, Speke, and Spick, Pick (Chapter III). The same bird was also called woodwall—
"In many places were nyghtyngales,
Alpes, fynches, and wodewales"
(Romaunt of the Rose, 567)—
hence, in some cases, the name Woodall. The Alpe, or bullfinch, mentioned in the above lines, also survives as a surname. Dunnock and Pinnock are dialect names for the sparrow. It was called in Anglo-Norman muisson, whence Musson. Starling is a dim. of Mid. Eng. stare, which has itself given the surname Starr
"The stare, that the counseyl can be-wrye." (Parliament of Fowls, 348.)
Heron is the French form of the bird-name which was in English Herne—