Fast Little Boogers
Fast Little Boogers
From Nancy B Toney
This Northern Hawk Owl took off from a perch while I was looking at my phone and within seconds had missed the entire flight. Luckily it went back to the same perch and did the entire sequence again.
"Holy crap that's a fast bird! Is that a hawk?"
"No! No, look, it's a kind of owl!"
"Dang that's a fast owl. It needs a name that reflects its speed."
"How about we call it... a 'Hawk Owl'?"
That's one of the things that's got me looking for more international/non-English content this year, is learning what other people call the same animals.
In German, this looks to be sperbereule/barrow owl, French is chouette รฉperviรจre/hawkweed owl, Danish is sperweruil/sparrowhawk owl, Polish is sowa jarzฤbata/northern spotted owl, and cรกrabo gavilรกn/tawny hawk in Spanish. So some sound similar, one or 2 sound like it might be something else, and one doesn't look to even translate to an owl at all. At least from a Google translation of what the words mean.
But until I start bringing it up and having people explain how Google or I am wrong, I won't know for sure.
The "Sperber" part of Sperbereule is the name for a sparrowhawk. "Eule" is one of the words for "owl." So pretty similar to "hawk owl." The link has the pronunciation if you're curious.
Google Translate usually does well enough, but one trick I like to use is just open the Wikipedia article for the thing you're interested in. Click on the language icon on the left side. Look for the language you want, look at the title, and there's the translated name.