Buzzards

[Francoise Rosset]

> This makes sense if the US usage is "hawk" and the UK usage is 
>"buzzard" -- why would a lexicographer invent a US term for a UK 
>bird, or vice versa? Or do American birders "misname" the local birds 
>when they cross the pond?

Well, the birds could be slightly different, but there obviously is a
difference in usage. I live not far from Buzzard's Bay. I used to 
imagine
sketchy stories from the American war for independence, with nasty
Redcoats hanging people along the shore etc. ... but the people who
named it were presumably fresh from England and using the British
term for a local raptor. It is said --and this has made it into 
Wikipedia
so it must be correct -- that what they really saw was a local osprey
(aka fish-hawk or sea-hawk).

In France my grandparents always pointed out "buses" (une buse)
hunting small animals in the fields -- not scavengers, and looking
nothing like vultures. Probably the French equivalent of the British
"buzzard," and definitely the "hawks" I now see all over Southeastern
Mass.
-FR

Francoise Rosset
Russian and Russian Studies
Coordinator, German and Russian
Wheaton College
Norton, Massachusetts 02766
Office: (508) 285-3696
FAX:   (508) 286-3640

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