🐦 Birds · Collective Nouns
What Is a Group of Buzzards Called?
A name that changes with what the birds are doing — and a word that means two completely different birds depending which side of the Atlantic you’re on.
A group of buzzards is called a wake when feeding on carrion, a kettle when circling together in flight on rising thermals, and occasionally a pack. Which term fits depends entirely on what the birds are doing at the moment.
What Is a Group of Buzzards Called?
Wake is the most specific term, used when buzzards gather to feed on a carcass. Kettle describes birds circling together on rising thermal air currents, often while migrating. Pack is a looser, less commonly documented alternate.Read more in A Wake of Buzzards, A Kettle of Buzzards, or A Pack of Buzzards — or see which other animals form a wake, kettle, or pack.
A Word With Two Different Meanings
“Buzzard” means two very different birds depending on where you are. In the United States, “buzzard” is the everyday name for New World vultures, especially the turkey vulture. In the United Kingdom and much of Europe, “buzzard” properly refers to Buteo hawks, a completely different group of birds of prey more closely related to red-tailed hawks. Both groups share the collective nouns wake and kettle, since both are large soaring birds that circle on thermals and, in the case of vultures, gather at carcasses.Where Did the Names Come From?
“Wake” is a grim but apt borrowing from human funeral tradition, applied to vultures gathering around a dead animal much the way mourners gather around the departed. “Kettle” describes the visual: dozens of birds spiraling upward together on a thermal look uncannily like steam or bubbles rising inside a boiling kettle, a term used by birders and hawk-watchers to this day during migration counts.Buzzard Facts
- Soaring specialists: Both true buzzards and New World vultures are expert soarers, riding rising thermal air currents to cover long distances with minimal wingbeats.
- Vulture senses: Turkey vultures have an unusually strong sense of smell for a bird, able to detect the gas released by decaying carcasses from over a mile away.
- Ecological role: As scavengers, vultures play a critical role in removing carrion from the landscape, limiting the spread of disease.
- European buzzards: Buteo buteo, the common buzzard, is one of the UK’s most widespread birds of prey, hunting rabbits and small mammals from a perch or while soaring.
- Migration kettles: During fall migration, hawk-watch sites can record kettles of hundreds or even thousands of raptors spiraling together over a single ridge.
- Bald heads: New World vultures have featherless heads, an adaptation that helps keep them clean while feeding inside a carcass.
Example Sentences
- A wake of buzzards had already gathered by the time the rangers reached the fallen deer.
- Hawk-watchers counted a massive kettle of buzzards spiraling upward on the afternoon thermal.
- The common buzzard is far more solitary than its American vulture namesake, rarely seen outside a small pack while hunting.
🧠 Test Your Buzzard Knowledge
Three quick questions. See what stuck.1. What is a group of feeding buzzards called?
2. What does “buzzard” mean in the UK?
3. What does a “kettle” of buzzards describe?