[Nhcoll-l] common English name

[Gali Beiner]

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>*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20221027/800c1383/attachment.html>