boxofdelights: (Default)
[personal profile] boxofdelights
There's an osprey at the raptor center. It is eating, which is a very good sign, since most injured ospreys just don't. They have to be tease-fed or force-fed. It came in with a spinal injury, so its prospects for release are not great.

Do you say ospree or ospray? I have always heard ospree, but everyone at the raptor center says ospray. I wonder whether they are influenced by the 'prey' in Birds of Prey.

As I was cleaning a Great Horned Owl (GHOW) cage, I kept referring to the bird as "she" even though I don't know her sex. I couldn't figure it out from her case file, either. I did figure out that the gender neutral pronoun people use for birds is "bird". They'll often leave out the pronoun and write sentences like, "Bird was on A-frame when I entered the cage. Watched calmly while I cleaned," but when they need a pronoun they usually don't use "it" or "he" or "she", they write, "When I moved too close, bird flew to SE corner, missed the perch, stayed on the ground the rest of the time I was in the cage."

Date: 2014-09-07 02:07 am (UTC)
jesse_the_k: Pixar's Dory, the adventurous fish with a brain injury (dain bramage)
From: [personal profile] jesse_the_k
Hmm, the "bird" approach is generalizable, especially when one's genre is one-syllable.

Fan went up to con suite. Other fan handed fan hot dog. Fan was pleased.

/had too much sugar today.

Date: 2014-09-07 02:50 am (UTC)
mecurtin: Pileated Woodpecker from Audubon's Birds of America (birds)
From: [personal profile] mecurtin
I have said "ospray" for many decades, but I'm pretty sure I've heard "ospree" before. Just not from birders IIRC.

Date: 2014-09-07 03:11 am (UTC)
isis: (Default)
From: [personal profile] isis
Ospray. There is a backpacking gear company locally also named Osprey and that is how they say it, too.

Date: 2014-09-07 04:46 am (UTC)
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
From: [personal profile] redbird
I say ospray.

I like that as gender-neutral pronoun.

Date: 2014-09-07 06:18 am (UTC)
seascribble: the view of boba fett's codpiece and smoking blaster from if you were on the ground (Default)
From: [personal profile] seascribble
Ospray also. I wish it were as easy to be gender neutral with everything as it is with birds.

Date: 2014-09-07 02:52 pm (UTC)
susanreads: Dreamsheep with UK flag (UK sheep)
From: [personal profile] susanreads
Ospry, same ending as hostelry. Is that what you mean by ospree? Because that suggests to me that it would rhyme with house-key, which is a longer ee. I'd never heard it pronounced with a long vowel until I noticed in BBC nature programs (Springwatch and its spinoffs) that some presenters pronounce it right and some say ospray. Maybe it's regional?

Date: 2014-09-08 02:35 am (UTC)
em_h: (Default)
From: [personal profile] em_h
I've always heard, and said, ospray. i suspect it is a regional thing.

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