Informal poll (birds)

[Meredig, John]

As a follow-up to Prof. Rancour-Laferriere's last post, I have a little story to share. Since amateur birding is essentially unknown in Russia (and given that in the Soviet era wandering around remote natural areas with a pair of binoculars might not be such a great idea for anyone, let alone a foreigner), I often got rather perplexed and suspicious looks from Russians while birding, for example, in Izmailovsky Park in Moscow. My favorite, though, was in the woods near a friend's dacha outside of Moscow. As I passed a couple muzhiks on a little footpath with my binoculars conspicuously dangling from my neck, I overheard the one comment to the other in an utterly dismissive tone: "Ха! Грибов биноклем ищет!"

John Meredig

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 11:54 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Informal poll (birds)

Well, there you go.  I saw my first vulture ("buzzard") in Hinckley, Ohio in the summer of 1961.  This was a big deal for a young birder freshly arrived from Vermont.  If you contact the Biology Dept. at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, you can probably obtain information about the "buzzard" festival.

I thank all Slavist colleagues out there who have contributed to this birding thread.  It's nice to know some Slavists are also birders.  When I was an undergrad biology major at Denison I started studying Russian so I could go birding in Russia (particularly Siberia).  Then I got sidetracked and became a Slavist, and never did much birding in Russia, and never went east of the Urals.  I discovered that Russians knew everything about mushrooms (or claimed they knew everything about mushrooms), and practically nothing about birds.

Cheers,
Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

Deborah Hoffman wrote:

>The way I heard the story -- in connection with the "buzzard" festival at Hinckley, Ohio to welcome back the turkey vultures every year -- was that settlers from England brought the term buzzard to the US and began applying it to turkey vultures. That usage either died out back home or never caught on. Have no citable source for this information, however!
>   
>  I'm glad there are other hale and hearty birders out there. My preschooler has taken a shine to the Audobon Society calendar and his standard conversation opener is "Do you know the Brown Pelican? How about the Palawan Hornbill?" Maybe I should sign him up for SEELANGS...
>   
>   
>  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Date:    Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:12:12 -0400
>From:    "Paul B. Gallagher" <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM>
>Subject: Re: Informal poll
>
>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?
>
>
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