Puzzler #7 (New and Improved): Rename that Hawk

Answers

OLD NAME ACTUAL NAME
Marsh Hawk Northern Harrier: Not to be confused with a Marsh Harrier which is a bird found in Europe.
Pigeon Hawk Merlin
Sparrow Hawk or Sparrowhawk American Kestrel
Chicken Hawk or Chickenhawk Cooper’s Hawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk or Red-tailed Hawk: Even though chickens are not part of their normal fare, by implying that these raptors are chicken killers, some hoped that people would not be outraged when these raptors were shot, poisoned or trapped.
Grouse Hawk Northern Goshawk
Goose Hawk Northern Goshawk: This is the origin of the bird’s common name no doubt.
Duck Hawk Peregrine Falcon
Fish Hawk Osprey
Squirrel Hawk or Squirrelhawk Ferruginous Hawk, most commonly, but was used for any Rough-legged Hawk
Starling Hawk  This one does not really exist – but wouldn’t it be nice!

References and Further Reading

http://www.towhee.net/history/archaic.html

http://www.sentinelsource.com/opinion/columnists/staff/bosak/a-hawk-by-any-other-name-may-be-a-kestrel/article_ef45138d-a734-5340-9758-5e7a9be4d2d7.html

http://birdnote.org/show/how-birds-names-change

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