[Admiral Nelson]

[Mefustae]

Looks like you weren't the only thing having a lunch break.

[Herra Tohtori]

Props for the buzzard.  There should be more of those culling those ****ty pigeons walking and flying around...

[Mika]

You tend to get good photos, don't you? I need to do a search in my personal archives and take a look if there's anything there that could be posted here.

Believe it or not, I have horrible time trying to name the bird. It looks like an eagle, but it is about the size of a falcon? Bah, should not try and guess the names of the bird that don't inhabit this country.

Mika

[Admiral Nelson]

It is a peregrine falcon.  There is a small family of them that live on the PG&E building.

[Mika]

I ashamed to admit that I was thinking more of the eagle. I actually had to find a picture of eagle, falcon and that bird close by. Only then it was obvious.

Now let's name the lunch.

[Admiral Nelson]

Now I have been informed that it might be a red tailed hawk.  I can't say I know much about birds.   Supposedly the red tails are competing with the peregrines.  The lunch was a pigeon.

[Polpolion]

Neato!

[CP5670]

Some of those pictures are quite the orly owl material.

[Herra Tohtori]

Peregrine?

It looks like a buteo to me. It's tail doesn't seem long enough for a peregrine, the detail in chest is the wrong way (too big and sparse and vertical instead of horizontal, although variations do exist...), and the bright colour in the chest doesn't extend to it's face. Also, it's head is much bulkier than a peregrine's... like it's overall build (though that could be just the feathers puffing).

Dunno which exact species of buteo it is, but common buzzard would be my bet (just for probability). Red-tailed buzzard is another possibility, but they are close to each other anyway.

Although, if you saw it in flight, the species determination could become much easier. If you did, were the wingtips rounded or pointed? Peregrines (like all falcons) have pointed wing tips; Buteos (like other hawks) have rounded wings.

Here's a peregrine falcon:




And here's a common buzzard (Buteo buteo):




At any rate, you're lucky to have a family of any birds of pray nesting/hunting around your daily locations. But if those are peregrines there, my bet would be that this one is not a part of that family (or species).

Then again, I could be making an ass of myself...


EDIT: Daymn, too sl0w!

[Admiral Nelson]

Maybe it is a red tailed hawk:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Red-tailed_Hawk.html

It looks like the juvenile second from the bottom, at least.  I made a posting on the PG&E falcon site, so I am sure someone there will provide the correct information.

[Mika]

Now, could someone native English explain the difference between words "hawk", "falcon" and "buzzard" to the stupid? And could Herra then do the same with the good old language, since I think all of them could be described with "haukka"?

Mika

[jr2]

Some of those pictures are quite the orly owl material.

[Admiral Nelson]

Evidently "hawk" is American English for "buzzard".  I had never heard the term 'buzzard' used to mean a bird of prey before Herra's post. Falcons are evidently a different species from hawks/buzzards, though I couldn't tell you how they are different.  Both are birds of prey.

[Herra Tohtori]

Yeah, it's extremely difficult to tell the exact species of buteo in many cases, mostly because there are a lot of interspecies variations, based on age and other things.

Where exactly do you live? If you're in America (like I suppose), then it's not the common buzzard then (it's an Old Word Buteo IIRC). In America, buteos are hawks, in Europe/Asia, they are buzzards. Red tailed hawk would be the most obvious possibility (since, IIRC, it is the most numerous species of buteo genus in North America, but it could also be something like a broad-winged hawk...


Oh, and to Mika's credit, eagles are much closer to buteonine hawks than buteo hawks are to falcons.

And what comes to actual naming schemes of these daytime birds of prey and how they correspond to Finnish language:

Haukka (hawk) is pretty much an umbrella term in Finnish, often used to describe almost all smaller-than-eagle daytime birds of prey (or raptors, if you wish). Falcon corresponds roughly to Finnish term "jalohaukka" (noble hawk) (but not quite! explanation further...), and their most notable feature is pointed wingtips and relatively small size. Although, in English, I believe there's much bigger difference between hawk and falcon (and kestrel and hobby and merlin and harriers and osprey...).

Which are, of course, the following:

Hawk (haukka)
Kestrel (tuulihaukka -> wind hawk)
Hobby (nuolihaukka -> arrow hawk)
Merlin (ampuhaukka -> shooting hawk)
Falcon (jalohaukka, all the rest of the members of Falconidae - including Peregrine falcon)
Peregrine (muuttohaukka -> moving hawk)
Harriers (suohaukat -> swamp hawks)
Osprey (sääksi or kalasääski... sääksi is "osprey", kalasääski is literally "fish mosquito")


The taxonomy of raptors is a bit of a mess, you can go and check it out from Falconiformes wiki article...

[Admiral Nelson]

I live in San Francisco.  There aren't any common buzzards in America.  I have been informed that the bird is a first year red tailed hawk.  These birds are evidently also known as "chickenhawks", although the bird I saw doesn't resemble Henery Hawk.

[jr2]

Heh.. for a min as the pic was loading, I thought maybe a Golden Eagle.. that'd be a sight!!

[Hellstryker]

Red tailed hawk. got tons of em around here in PA. as herra said, props for the buzzard  ! the less flying rats the better

[Rictor]

Cool. I hope you took the pics from far, far away with a nice, safe zoom lens.

[Admiral Nelson]

These were taken with a 24-105mm lens, at 105mm.  The police were actually on hand to keep people back.