Talkin' Ball: Watch the "Bird", naming the shuttlecock

Though not big in the US, the sport of badminton has remained popular through the Britsh Commonwealth, especially in Asian nations,  but is also fairly vibrant in Jamaica.

A shuttlecock (also called a bird or birdie)  s a high-drag projectile used in the sport.  It has an open conical shape: the cone is formed from 16 or so overlapping feathers, usually goose or duck, embedded into a rounded cork base. The cork is covered with thin leather. To ensure that shuttlecocks rotate consistently, only feathers from the birds' left wings are used. The shuttlecock's shape makes it extremely aerodynamically stable. Regardless of initial orientation, it will turn to fly cork first, and remain in the cork-first orientation.

It got its name from the Victorian times,when badminton was first discovered as and became popular.The name shuttlecock is frequently shortened to shuttle. The "shuttle" part of the name was probably derived from its back-and-forth motion during the game, resembling the shuttle of a loom; the "cock" part of the name was probably derived from the resemblance of the feathers to those on a cockerel.