I got lots of letters about my corrections to John Blakeman's F.A.Q. for the Washington Square nest.  Those supporting my position outweighed those against by about twenty to one.

One of the most interesting letters talked about how John had trained the chat room to only use technical terms while discussing hawks.  What's interesting is how the chat room uses these terms like a cult, insisting everyone use them.

In real life, not chat room life, many of the terms John Blakeman has taught are rarely, if ever used.  Even in scientific discussions many of these terms are not enforced.  Using tiercel rather than male is rare for example, but like a cult many in the chat room insist on using this term.  Those who don't use tiercel are thought of as being ignorant.

But what really bothers me is the use of an archaic term from the middle ages for a female hawk, formel.  This term hasn't been used for centuries, except by John Blakeman and his followers.

Google formel and you won't find anything about hawks for pages.  Google formel and hawk, and you will only find it where John Blakeman has been. 

Here is the modern etymology of the word, formel.

• The term is listed as obsolete in the O.E.D, with the last quotation from the 17th century. 
• On February 28th, 2008 John Blakeman declares there is no word for a female hawk like tiercel.  To quote from a letter he wrote to Marie Winn's which she posted on her blog, "Sadly, for the Red-tail and other similar hawks that were never used in classical falconry, there is no really fine, deliberate designation of a female. A good number of falconers and raptor biologists label a female Red-tail as a "hen." For me, that's a term that should be reserved for real hens, female adult chickens and other closely related species. For me, "hen" is not properly serious enough to be used for a female Red-tail. To me, they are never so diminutive as to be called a mere "hen.""
• The next day, a librarian, Chris Karatnytsky writes Marie that there is a term for a female hawk used in Chaucer's allegorical dream poem, Parlement of Foules.
• John Blakeman begins using this term when writing to Marie Winn and then uses it with chat users both at the Franklin Institute and Washington Square nests.
• To this day, revival of the term formel escapes the notice of ornithologists world wide.