page_title: Kosher animals
section_title: Birds
hierarchical_section_title: Kosher animals / Birds
caption_attribution_description: Streptopelia turtur Català: Tórtora Dansk: Turteldue Deutsch: Turteltaube English: Turtle Dove Español: Streptopelia turtur Eesti: Turteltuvi Suomi: Turturikyyhky Norsk bokmål: Turteldue Svenska: Turturduva
context_page_description: Kosher animals are animals that comply with the regulations of kashrut and are considered kosher foods. These dietary laws ultimately derive from various passages in the Torah with various modifications, additions and clarifications added to these rules by Halakha. Various other animal-related rules are contained in the 613 commandments.
context_section_description: In regard to birds, no general rule is given, and instead Leviticus 11:13-19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18 explicitly list the prohibited birds. In the Shulchan Aruch 3 Signs are given to Kosher birds: Crop, an extra finger, a gizzard that can be peeled. Also it must not be a bird of prey. The Masoretic Text lists the birds as:
  nesher (that which sheds [its feathers])
  peres (bone breaker)
  ozniyah (feminine form of oz, meaning strong)
  ra'ah/da'ah ([that which] darts, in the sense of rapid)
  ayyah
  orev
  bat yaanah (daughter of howling)
  tahmas ([one who] scratches the face)
  shahaf ([one which] atrophies)
  netz
  kos (cup)
  shalak  (plunger)
  yanshuf (twilight)
  tinshemet (blower/breather)
  qa'at  (vomiting)
  racham (tenderness/affection)
  hasidah (devoted)
  anafah ([one which] sniffs sharply, in the sense of anger)
  dukifat
  atalef
  The list in Deuteronomy has an additional bird, the dayyah, which seems to be a combination of da'ah and ayyah, and may be a scribal error; the Talmud regards it as a duplication of ayyah.  This, and the other terms are vague and difficult to translate, but there are a few further descriptions, of some of these birds, elsewhere in the Bible:
  The ayyah is mentioned again in the Book of Job, where it is used to describe a bird distinguished by its particularly good sight.
  The bat yaanah is described by the Book of Isaiah as living in desolate places, and the Book of Micah states that it emits a mournful cry.
  The qa'at appears in the Book of Zephaniah, where it is portrayed as nesting on the columns of a ruined city; the Book of Isaiah identifies it as possessing a marshy and desolate kingdom.
  The Septuagint versions of the lists are more helpful, as in almost all cases the bird is clearly identifiable:
  aeton (eagle)
  grypa (ossifrage)
  haliaetos (sea-eagle)
  gyps (vulture)
  ictinia (kite)
  corax (raven)
  stouthios (ostrich)
  glaux (owl)
  laros (gull)
  hierax (hawk)
  nycticorax (night raven)
  cataractes (cormorant)
  porphyrion ("swamp hen")
  cycnos (swan)
  ibis
  pelican
  charadrios (plover)
  herodios (heron)
  epops (hoopoe)
  nycturia (bat)
  meleagris (guineafowl)
  Although the first ten of the birds identified by the Septuagint seem to fit the descriptions of the Masoretic Text, the ossifrage (Latin for bone breaker) being a good example, the correspondence is less clear for most of the remaining birds; it is also obvious that the list in Leviticus, or the list in Deuteronomy, or both, are in a different order in the Septuagint, compared to the Masoretic Text. Attempting to determine the correspondence is problematic; for example, the pelican may correspond to qa'at (vomiting), in reference to the pelican's characteristic behaviour, but it may also correspond to kos (cup), as a reference to the pelican's jaw pouch. An additional complexity arises from the fact that the porphyrion has not yet been identified, and classical Greek literature merely identifies a number of species that are not the porphyrion, including the peacock, grouse, and robin, and implies that the porphyrion is the cousin of the kingfisher. From these meager clarifications, the porphyrion can only be identified as anything from the lilac-breasted roller, Indian roller, or northern carmine bee-eater, to the flamingo. A likely candidate is the purple swamphen.
  During the Middle Ages, classical descriptions of the hoopoe were mistaken for descriptions of the lapwing, on account of the lapwing's prominent crest, and the hoopoe's rarity in England, resulting in lapwing being listed in certain bible translations instead of hoopoe; similarly the sea eagle has historically been confused with the osprey, and translations have often used the latter bird in place of the former. Because strouthos (ostrich) was also used in Greek for the sparrow, a few translations have placed the sparrow among the list. In Arabic, the Egyptian vulture is often referred to as rachami, and therefore a number of translations render racham as gier eagle, the old name for the Egyptian vulture.
  Variations arise when translations follow other ancient versions of the Bible, rather than the Septuagint, wher
caption: Turtle dove
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix F11", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Digital Camera FinePix F11     Ver1.01", "Image DateTime": "2006:10:31 15:02:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "294", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1360", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8246", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/90", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:10:31 15:02:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:10:31 15:02:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "164/25", "EXIF ApertureValue": "23/5", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "339/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "24", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2848", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2136", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1212", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "3703", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "3703", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}