In the fantasies, "faerie" is a collective word for the fae. I wonder if that use is because Disney ruined the word "fairy" with his depiction of Tinkerbell. That delicate little thing had no relation to the dangerous power of the older Faerie, as witnessed by the story of Tam Lin.

There is one popular urban fantasy series (Kim Harrison's The Hollows/Rachel Morgan) where one of the main characters, a pixie (and don't be fooled, they are quite dangerous), constantly swears using "Tink's" name.

I know the word elaenia, Pat, but as you say, they are difficult to tell apart.

I know a few basic butterflies and dragonflies, but still have problems telling the different ones apart. I'm getting a little better at figuring out which of the local groups they belong to - skippers, blues, swallowtails, anglewings, etc. I still have to use my field guide. It helps a great deal that I'm usually working from my photos, especially for the dragonflies!

Calilasseia, perhaps some of those unusual-named birds are an early attempt at political correctness rather than using more accurate descriptions. Just think if they had been named aggressive car-attacker, perpetual chest-molter, tubby ground-parrot, or stinky bird.   

I've certainly heard the phrase Jackie mentioned -  "looking further afield" - here in the US - I wouldn't have thought it was uncommon.

Not allowed in the spelunker game.

I know the more common word is peel, and unpeel seems impossible - how do you stick the peeled skin back on a potato, for instance?
But it does seem to be a word and is in dictionaries, and means peel.

Like rave/unravel - both mean the same thing. No one can convince me that the English language is logical.

I've never heard the term "colorism" though I am certainly aware of the concept. I remember a very light-skinned Jamaican colleague speaking about the attitude, and that he criticized fellow Jamaicans for denigrating those darker than themselves.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a human characteristic to divide people into "us" and "them," and to assert their superiority over the "other."

Although I know the word (I took a course in genetics way back when), I would not think it is common.

Now that third example is quite a puzzle, Alan, since lions are an Old World cat and mountain lions are New World. Unless the author is writing fantasy or about escaped captive animals, that's an unusual pairing.

NIMBY is fairly common in my area, though I think it is still usually spelled as an acronym, with capital letters.