FW-190 Butcherbird? Not proper translation.

[stepwilk]

For an article on Kurt Tank that I'm doing for the U. S. magazine Aviation History, are there any German-speakers out there who can tell me why the FW-190 has come down to us as the "butcherbird," which is supposedly what Tank named it? He in fact named it "Wuerger," which as far as I can tell means shrike, a variety of hawk. Perfectly good name for an airplane, in fact I spent five years flying a twin-engine Commander Shrike--an airplane made notorious by Bob Hoover.

Anyway, are shrikes typically called butcherbirds by German birdwatchers, or is this another creation of wartime PR?

[ICT_SLB]

Shrikes are not members of the hawk family. They get their alternative Englsh name "butcherbird", as you may know, from their practice of impaling their food on thorns. See here:
Shrike - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrike)

[stepwilk]

Thank you, Wichita, that explains it. I always assumed shrikes were hawks, and your explanation that they indeed were colloquially known as butcherbirds answers my question.

Great resource, you people...

[LowNSlow]

I think the RAF pilots in their Spitfire Vs also referred to it as the Butcherbird because it was tearing them apart until Supermarine came up with the Spit IX.