jespah@milton.u.washington.edu (Kathleen Hunt) (12/10/90)
From: J.M.Spencer@newcastle.ac.uk (Jonathan Spencer) *I'm sorry, but you've rather missed the point. While the layman might *refer to any raptor as a hawk, and falconers might define a hawk as *"any diurnal bird of prey used for falconry", the more strict *definitions classify *just* Accipiters to be the true hawks, Falco are *the falcons, and Buteo the buzzards. Hence, the American common name *for the redtailed hawk is incorrect since the redtail is _Buteo *jamaicensis_ - it is a buzzard, not a hawk. Thus my question "what *is an Accipiter if it's not a hawk" is correct. Yeah, BUT that IS the redtail's common name, and saying that it is "incorrect" doesn't really solve the problem. Both Buteos and Accipiters are called "hawks" in the U.S. Seems to me that "hawk" has become like "elk" -- i.e. a word used to refer to different animals in the Old World and the New World, with O.W. folk claiming that their definitions will always be the True Definitions, and N.W. people saying well, that's really irrelevant, because in the N.W. the word has taken on a life of its own and it's too late to change it. Same problem, to some extent, with "buzzard". I have noticed a lot of people are now just saying "buteo" when they want to refer to redtail-like birds, rather than saying "hawk" or "buzzard" and getting everybody all confused. This is what biologists are currently doing with "elk", too. The impressive animal with the pointy antlers that most North Americans would call an "elk" but that Europeans tend to call a "red deer" (or a close relation of the red deer, anyway) is now mostly referred to as a "wapiti" (a native american name, I think) in the scientific literature. The awkward looking animal with the big head and big palmate antlers that N.Americans call a "moose" and Europeans call an "elk" is now being called a "moose" across the board. The impressive animal with the pointy antlers that lives in Europe and looks like the wapiti, that N.Americans would call an "elk" and Europeans would call a "red deer", is now called a "red deer" across the board. Crystal clear, huh? By the way, thanks to all who responded to my chickadee/kinglet post. I am pleased to report I now can tell black-capped chickadees, chestnut- backed chickadees, golden- and ruby-crowned kinglets, and brown creepers apart from each other by ear. My little class project is over, and overall I saw 34 winter resident species in forested Seattle-area parks. All in all the project went smoothly, aside from a small glitch when I was recording so many Northern Flickers that I accidentally recorded a Hairy Woodpecker as a Hairy Flicker, abbreviated it to H.F., and then turned it into a House Finch...oops.... Jespah