Buteo buteo and Regulus regulus
Common Buzzard, Buteo buteo, flying over farmland near our home. The pale breast band is a distinguishing feature of this species and separates it from others with which it might be confused.
Incidentally, this is not a “buzzard” in the North American vernacular sense. That slang term usually refers to the Turkey Vulture, the kind of birds that circle above the dying cowboy struggling through Death Valley in an old Western. Rather, the Common Buzzard pictured here is more closely related to the North American species, the Rough-legged Hawk, Buteo lagopus. Old World species in the Buteo genus are known as Buzzards, whereas the New World species are referred to as Hawks. If you’re in South-east Asia you might see an Eastern, or Japanese, Buzzard, Buteo japonicus.
Buteo buteo is one of those animal species that is the “type” of the genus, it’s the archetypal buzzard, hence the doubling of its scientific name, this format is known as a tautonym. I’ve mentioned tautonyms several times before on Sciencebase. There are lots about, one of the best is Gorilla gorilla gorilla, which is the Western Lowland Gorilla. And, back with the birds there is, of course, Puffinus puffinus. That name is not the Atlantic Puffin as you might imagine, they’re known as Fratercula arctica. No, P. puffinus is the Manx Shearwater. Back in the 17th Century that shearwater was known as the Manx Puffin.
At the opposite end of the British avian size spectrum to the Common Buzzard, we have the Goldcrest, Regulus regulus. This is our joint smallest bird alongside the Firecrest, Regulus ignicapillus. Actually, our Goldcrest is the nominate sub-species and is more formally Regulus regulus regulus to distinguish it from other species such as R. r. teneriffae, the Canary Islands Goldcrest.
As with the Buzzard, the Goldcrest’s scientific name is a tautonym, it’s doubled to mark it out as the archetype of the genus. Where buteo is Latin for buzzard, regulus means little king. Elsewhere in the world, the Regulus birds are known as kinglets, which also means little king, obvs.