Informal poll

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Been birding for just fifty years now, and I have to say something 
here.  "Buzzard" is slangy American term for vulture (either Coragyps 
atratus or Cathartes aura - Black Vulture and Turkey Vulture, 
respectively).  The use of "buzzard" to designate a member of the genus 
Buteo (e.g., Buteo buteo, which is kaniuk in Russian) is chiefly 
British.  In American English members of the Buteo genus are just 
"hawks" (e.g., Red-Tailed Hawk, Broad Winged Hawk, etc).  As for sarych 
in Russian, it is in the genus Butastur, e.g., Butastur indicus, 
rendered as "Gray-faced Buzzard" in the English translation of the V. E. 
Flint et al bird guide in Russian (published by Princeton UP: but the 
genus Butastur does not occur in North America).  In the color plates of 
that volume the Buteo buteo and the Butastur indicus look rather 
similar, but both are quite different (much smaller) from members of the 
genus Aquila (eagles).

Cheers,

Daniel RL

colkitto wrote:

> thanks!
>
>> sarych? haven't heard of it. katerina siskron
>
>
> here's my reply
>
>
> Many thanks for your responses.  I am currently just putting the 
> finishing
> touches to a review of
>
> Jagdwörterbuch Russisch-Deutsch by Irmgard Lorenz. München: Verlag Otto
> Sagner, 2005. 181 pp.
>
> and it includes the entry for сарыч
>
> I intend to say something like
>
> "Many of the terms included are obscure even to native speakers of 
> Russian.
> On a personal note, it is interesting to see сарыч [sarych] (139), 
> glossed
> as ‘Bussard’ Buteo ‘buzzard’.   In the part of  the English-speaking 
> world
> where I hail from a primary connotation of  'buzzard' is 'one step 
> below the
> golden eagle in the raptor hierarchy', and people who claim to have seen
> eagles (which are rather rare, and nearly all in remoter parts of the
> Highlands), are usually believed to have seen buzzards.'
>
> The closest encounter I myself have had with a golden eagle was on Fionn
> Bheinn above Achnasheen (it took off from under my feet), but afterwards
> several people told me it must have been a buzzard [my father and uncle
> quite forcefully].  I related this to a correspondent in Russia and 
> was told
> "А слова сарыч никогда не слышала", [a slovo sarych nikogda ne 
> slyshala"],
> and something similar has been repeated several times when this 
> anecdote is
> recounted.  An informal poll of people with a sophisticated knowledge of
> Russian [more sophisticated than my own - RAO] suggests that сарыч may be
> quite an obscure lexeme, more so than 'buzzard' in English.'
>
> There's also a form канюк [kanyuk], which appears to be a synonym.
>
> Tatyana, special thanks for drawing my attention to Uncle Remus in 
> Russian.
> There is a Mr. Buzzard. This opens up a fresh line of inquiry.
>
> Sincerely
>
> Robert
>
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