Garden Wildlife UK

Placido wrote:"... and you got me wantin' you."
The Archies

I'd stopped listening to pop music by 1969 but somehow I remember this. Catchy, innit ??

Round the Handbag.

Desperate news! In spite of all the confident predictions by Mystic Placi my expected Lottery windfall failed to materialize . Cancel my order for the high octane Heather Brew. I don't know how I'm going to break the news to the Aston Martin dealer tomorrow morning. The trusty old Honda will have to do for the time being at least.

Now now, you know The Rules by now, cap'n - N.R.
(No Refunds).

Orders Once Placed Cannot Be Recalled (O.O.P.C.B.R.).

So Rufus the Wimbledon pigeon-scarer is a Harris Hawk .
Neither of my heretofore utterly trusted bird books contain this semi-mythical being, but Google does .
Maybe it's a new creation .....??

It is in my book Placi. Field guide to birds of north America. Was sent to me by a friend. In fact in my book it is called a Harris`s Hawk. Don't know why there is a comma and an extra S.

Ah well, if you've gotta N. American book then that's cheating !!
It's a south American resident so I understand and, yes, it says in brackets "(Harris's)" hawk.
Now the question is: who was Harris ?!?!?! It would be logical that the discoverer of a south American hawk was a south American but, NO !!, it was Harris.

Maybe his first name was Pablo, or maybe Luis .....

Here you go Placi:-


Harris's Hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus) 3 of 4 in set.jpg


Conservation status



Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]


Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Accipitriformes
Family: Accipitridae
Subfamily: Buteoninae
Genus: Parabuteo
Species: P. unicinctus

Binomial name

Parabuteo unicinctus
(Temminck, 1824)

Subspecies


P. u. harrisi
P. u. superior
P. u. unicinctus


Synonyms


Falco harrisii Audubon 1839
Buteo harrisii Audubon 1840






Portrait
The Harris' hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus) formerly known as the bay-winged hawk or dusky hawk, is a medium-large bird of prey that breeds from the southwestern United States south to Chile and central Argentina. Birds are sometimes reported at large in Western Europe, especially Britain, but it is a popular species in falconry and these records almost certainly all refer to escapes from captivity.

The name is derived from the Greek para, meaning beside, near or like, and the Latin buteo, referring to a kind of buzzard; uni meaning once; and cinctus meaning girdled, referring to the white band at the tip of the tail.[2] John James Audubon gave this bird its English name in honor of his ornithological companion, financial supporter, and friend Edward Harris.