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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fugl" data-source="post: 1428958" data-attributes="member: 816">Actually, they're not any kind of "vulture" either, but belong to a New World family unrelated to the Old World vultures. If we want to be "accurate" we have to adopt or invent a new name for them--"condors" maybe?. As far as I can tell there's no end to the kind of pedantry you seem to espouse.  New World "blackbirds" aren't "really" blackbirds (they're not related to the birds Europeans call "blackbirds"); ditto for New World "sparrows" ( = Old World "buntings" ) & New World warblers (not related to Old World "warblers").  And, of course, that old favorite, "hawks" not "buzzards" for NW buteos.Names are just labels, you know, mutually agreed upon by the speakers of a language or dialect.  They don't really "mean" anything.  They also change all the time.  Most of the characteristically American bird names weren't invented there but were introduced by the early settlers at a time before there was anything like a standardized list in the old country.Well this has sure drifting off topic isn't it, as always seems to happen to threads when trans-Atlantic differences in bird names are introduced?</blockquote>