{{short description|Slang term for the black kite and other scavenging birds of prey}} [[File:Milvus migrans front(ThKraft).jpg|thumb|right|220px|The [[black kite]], known in military slang as the ''shite-hawk'']] {{Wiktionary|shitehawk}} '''''Shite-hawk''''' (also spelled '''''shitehawk''''') or '''''shit-hawk''''' or '''''shitty hawk'''''<ref name=olsen-1995>{{Cite book | last=Olsen | first=Penny |authorlink=Penny Olsen | title=Australian Birds of Prey: the Biology and Ecology of Raptors | publisher=UNSW Press | year=1995 | isbn=978-0-86840-039-6 | page=57 }}</ref> is a [[slang]] name applied to various birds of prey that exhibit scavenging behaviour, originally and primarily the [[black kite]], although the term has also been applied to other birds such as the [[European herring gull|herring gull]]. It is also a slang derogatory term for an unpleasant person.
==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:<ref name="oed-2011">{{Cite book | title=Oxford English Dictionary | publisher=Oxford University Press | edition=3rd |date=September 2011 | url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/178331 | chapter=shite-hawk }}</ref><ref name="cocker-mabey-2005">{{Cite book | last1=Cocker | first1=Mark | authorlink1=Mark Cocker | last2=Mabey | first2=Richard | authorlink2=Richard Mabey | title=Birds Britannica | publisher=Random House | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-7011-6907-7 | page=117 }}</ref>
{{Quote | text=At the transit camp the British soldier normally made his acquaintance with the kite-hawk [i.e. black kite], known familiarly as the 'shite-hawk'. 'There used to be thousands of them,' remembers Charles Wright. 'When one drew one's food from the cook-house and went to take it across to the dining room to eat at the tables underneath the sheds, these kite-hawks would swoop down and take the lot off your plate if you weren't careful. So you had to walk waving your arms above the plate until you got it under cover.' | sign=[[Charles Allen (writer)|Charles Allen]] | source=''Plain Tales from the Raj''<ref>{{Cite book | last=Allen | first=Charles | authorlink=Charles Allen (writer) | title=Plain Tales from the Raj : Images of British India in the Twentieth Century | publisher=Deutsch | year=1975 | isbn=978-0-233-96710-3 | page=39 }}</ref>}}
[[Eric Partridge]], an [[etymology|etymologist]], claimed that the term was used to refer to the [[vulture]] by the soldiers in the [[British Raj|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.<ref name="oed-2011"/> 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.<ref name="oed-2011"/><ref name="stubbings-2002">{{Cite book | last=Stubbings | first=David | title=Gone to Blazes: Life As a Cumbrian Fireman | publisher=Jeremy Mills Publishing | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-9540711-4-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rXjlR5wqJV8C | pages=85–92 }}</ref>
==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",<ref name="cocker-mabey-2005"/> in recent years, following the successful [[red kite#United Kingdom|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, [[Michael Baillie, 3rd Baron Burton|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".<ref name="hansard">{{Cite hansard | jurisdiction = United Kingdom | house=House of Lords | date = 28 April 1999 | column=423 | speaker=[[Michael Baillie, 3rd Baron Burton|Lord Burton]] | title = Capercaillie | url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/ldhansrd/vo990428/text/90428-16.htm }}</ref>
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.<ref name="b00yz3t2">{{Cite episode | title=The Kestrel and Red Kite | series=Debating Animals | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00yz3t2 | network=[[BBC]] | station=[[BBC Radio 4]] | airdate=3 March 2011 }}</ref> 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),<ref name="Nicholson">{{Cite book | last=Nicholson | first=Harry | title=Tom Fleck: a novel of Cleveland and Flodden | publisher=YouWriteOn | year=2011 | isbn=978-1-908147-76-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SerV-9N8vUUC | page=91 }}</ref> and in a poem written by Christopher Hodgson (published 2005):
<blockquote><poem> And in Medieval times, with waste piled publicly, Its habit of scavenging in sewage Earned it the sobriquet, "Shite hawk" — ''Red Kite'' by Christopher Hodgson<ref name="hodgson-2005">{{Cite book | last=Hodgson | first=Christopher | title=Willing the Wolf | publisher=Jan Oskar Hansen | year=2005 | isbn=978-1-905290-15-4 | pages=77–78 }}</ref> </poem></blockquote>
==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 Infantry Division (India)|4th Indian Division]] of the [[British Indian Army]], and the eagle on the left breast pocket of members of [[Pathfinder (RAF)|Pathfinder squadrons]] in the [[Royal Air Force]].<ref name="oed-2011"/> *The term "shitehawk" has also been used as a derogatory term for an offensive or unpleasant person, equivalent to the word "[[Shit#Displeasure|shit]]".<ref name="oed-2011"/> 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]]''.<ref>[http://www.chrisrand.com/hmhb/voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-road/he-who-would-valium-take/ The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project]</ref>
==Footnotes== {{Reflist|colwidth=20em}}
[[Category:Slang]]