[Nhcoll-l] common English name

[Wendy Beins]

Gali~
Also not an ornithologist so I don't know the common English term for all
nocturnal birds (if one exists), but I think lay people calling all
nocturnal birds "owls" to be on par with lay people calling all fossils
"dinosaurs".  It is incredibly incorrect and not something museums should
be perpetuating.  Although I now work in museum administration, my
education background is vert paleo collections and research based and so
when I'm working guest experience and someone refers to a non-dinosaur
fossil as a dinosaur I will correct them *every* time.
I know this didn't really answer your question other than please don't use
the word "owl" on a display label to refer to animals that are not owls.

~~Wendy Beins


On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 2:35 AM Gali Beiner <gali.beiner at mail.huji.ac.il>
wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> Just checking something that became a point of curiosity for me: I am not
> an ornithologist, I'm a conservator, so was quite surprised to learn
> recently something that sounded extremely strange to me. Maybe the bird
> specialists here can confirm it (or not):
>
> In a discussion on common-language English translation for a term in
> Hebrew covering all night-time birds of prey ("Dorsei laila", for those of
> you curious to know some Hebrew!), I was told that the commonly used
> English-language term to this end was "Owls".
>
> That surprised me very much, since I always thought that this word only
> referred to true owls (Strigiformes) and did not cover other nightly
> predators such as nighthawks. Does the term "owl" indeed refer to all
> nocturnal birds of prey? On a display label, which term would correctly
> describe all nocturnal birds of prey (owls/nocturnal raptors/nocturnal
> birds of prey)? This sort of piques my mind and I would be glad to hear
> your thoughts!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gali
>
>
>
> --
> Gali Beiner (ACR)
> Conservator, Palaeontology Lab
> National Natural History Collections
> The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
> Berman Building, Edmond J. Safra campus, Givat Ram
> Jerusalem 91904, Israel
> Fax. 972-2-6585785
> *gali.beiner at mail.huji.ac.il <gali.beiner at mail.huji.ac.il>*
>
> *https://nnhc.huji.ac.il/?lang=en <https://nnhc.huji.ac.il/?lang=en>*
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