Common Buzzard – Wings of the Week

The Common Buzzard with its tautonymic scientific name Buteo buteo is, in certain settings, the Scottish Highlands, known as the tourist’s eagle, because it often confuses newbies hoping to see a soaring Golden Eagle. This one was sat on the fence as I was leaving a local RSPB reserve today, having failed to spot my target species for the trip, Bearded Reedling, Panurus biarmicus. There are some interesting things to say about these two species, the buzzard and the reedling. First, in the US the term buzzard is more of a colloquialism and usually refers to the Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), the birds that circle above the gunfight in an old Western. In the US buteo species are more commonly referred to as hawks. Indeed, the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis, which means Jamaican Buzzard in case you couldn’t guess) is a relatively close cousin of the Common Buzzard. The Common Buzzard’s scientific name is a tautonym, which means the genus and the species parts of the binomial are…

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