Shite-hawk

Origin of the term

The term "shite-hawk" is believed to have originated as military slang by the British Army in India and Egypt, as a derogatory term for the black kite (Milvus migrans), which was despised by soldiers for its habit of stealing food from their plates:

Eric Partridge, an etymologist, claimed that the term was used to refer to the vulture by the soldiers in the British Army in India during the period 1870–1947, although the earliest recorded use of the term in print in the Oxford English Dictionary is 1944. In recent years, in the United Kingdom, the term "shite-hawk" has also been applied to the herring gull (Larus argentatus), which is known for its mobbing and scavenging behaviour.

Referring to the red kite

Although "shite-hawk" originally referred to the black kite in India and elsewhere, and British naturalists Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey explicitly note that the "red kite never suffered the indignity of its relative's nickname", in recent years, following the successful reintroduction of the red kite into Scotland and England during the 1990s, the term has also started to be used for the red kite in Britain, apparently due to confusion between the two species of kite. Thus, in 1999, Lord Burton announced in the House of Lords that "[p]ossibly one of the most highly protected birds today is the [red] kite, known by the British Army throughout the world as a shite-hawk".

In March 2011, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a radio programme called The Kestrel and Red Kite, in which presenter Rod Liddle repeatedly asserted that the red kite (Milvus milvus) was historically known as the shite-hawk in England. However, he provided no evidence for this assertion, and the only other references to the red kite being called a shite-hawk in medieval times are very recent, for example a historical novel published in 2011 (but set in 1513), and in a poem written by Christopher Hodgson (published 2005):

Other uses

• Military badges depicting birds of prey are also sometimes referred to as shite-hawks. Examples include the eagle badge on the sleeves of the 4th Indian Division of the British Indian Army, and the eagle on the left breast pocket of members of Pathfinder squadrons in the Royal Air Force.
• The term "shitehawk" has also been used as a derogatory term for an offensive or unpleasant person, equivalent to the word "shit". For example: in 1997, the band Half Man Half Biscuit described the driver of a car parked on the pavement as "a thoughtless shitehawk" in the song "He Who Would Valium Take" on their album Voyage to the Bottom of the Road.

Footnotes

References

1. Olsen, Penny. (1995). "Australian Birds of Prey: the Biology and Ecology of Raptors". UNSW Press.
2. (September 2011). "Oxford English Dictionary". Oxford University Press.
3. (2005). "Birds Britannica". Random House.
4. Allen, Charles. (1975). "Plain Tales from the Raj : Images of British India in the Twentieth Century". Deutsch.
5. Stubbings, David. (2002). "Gone to Blazes: Life As a Cumbrian Fireman". Jeremy Mills Publishing.
6. (28 April 1999). "Capercaillie".
7. "The Kestrel and Red Kite".
8. Nicholson, Harry. (2011). "Tom Fleck: a novel of Cleveland and Flodden". YouWriteOn.
9. Hodgson, Christopher. (2005). "Willing the Wolf". Jan Oskar Hansen.
10. [http://www.chrisrand.com/hmhb/voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-road/he-who-would-valium-take/ The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project]