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Posted by Bill Pranty on 09:40:19 01/24/05
In Reply to: Jizz? posted by Wanda Soto
Hi Wanda et al.,
The stoy around the word "jizz" may or may not be true (I've heard both claims), but it supposedly came from the Brits during the Battle of Britain, when they had to identify German planes from their own. They used the General Impression of Size and Shape of the planes to identify them, hence GISS, which somehow got corrupted to jizz.
Basically it means looking at the overall "gestalt" of a bird rather than plumage field marks. For instance, Great Egrets can be identified from other white egrets in flight by their slower wing-beats; Bonaparte's Gull always look "delicate" on the water; etc.
BTW, Put me in the Coop's camp too. And I'll go with a female, given the sie of the hawk relative to the moorhen that seems to be the black form beneath it -- that's a big accipiter. In this case, size alone determines the ID, but John is right about the slaty crown.
Best regards,
Bill Pranty
Avon Park, Florida
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