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prettygoodwordbustard (BUHS-terd) - n., any of several long-legged Old World game birds (family Otididae) of dry grasslands and steppes.
NB: Not to be confused with buzzards or bastards. These are related to cranes and include the largest flying birds there are, such as this handsome kori bustard of southern Africa:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
Note that while they can fly, they prefer running, in no small part because they are large for flying birds. The name dates back a ways, through Middle English bustarde, from an Anglo-Norman blend of Old French bistarde (from Old Italian) and oustarde, both from Latin name avis tarda, slow bird, which is actually contradictory as bustards are fast runners, and it's been speculated that, given Pliny the Elder's claim it originated in the Roman provinces of the Iberian Peninsula, that it might be a folk-etymological alteration of a local term from an unknown pre-Roman language.
---L.
NB: Not to be confused with buzzards or bastards. These are related to cranes and include the largest flying birds there are, such as this handsome kori bustard of southern Africa:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
Note that while they can fly, they prefer running, in no small part because they are large for flying birds. The name dates back a ways, through Middle English bustarde, from an Anglo-Norman blend of Old French bistarde (from Old Italian) and oustarde, both from Latin name avis tarda, slow bird, which is actually contradictory as bustards are fast runners, and it's been speculated that, given Pliny the Elder's claim it originated in the Roman provinces of the Iberian Peninsula, that it might be a folk-etymological alteration of a local term from an unknown pre-Roman language.
---L.
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Date: 2023-02-14 04:14 pm (UTC)They remind me a bit of Secretary Birds in a way that suggests that bustards might eat snakes.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-14 04:24 pm (UTC)They do look a lot like secretarybirds, but that seems to be a matter of convergent evolution as secretarybirds are cousins to hawks. Bustards are opportunistic omnivores focused on insects, which they apparently can catch enough of to support their size.