The Seattle Seahawks are a professional football team based in Seattle, Washington. They are known for their iconic mascot that represents the team's fierce and bold image. The Seahawks' mascot is named "Blitz," a fitting name for a team that prides itself on its aggressive playing style. Blitz is a costumed character that resembles a sea bird, specifically an osprey. Ospreys are known for their strong and powerful flight, symbolizing the team's strength and determination on the football field. The choice of an osprey as the team's mascot is also a nod to the Pacific Northwest region, where these birds are commonly found.
What Is a Seahawk, Anyway?
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Super Bowl Sunday is here. The Seattle Seahawks are great football players and all, but their team name got us wondering: What do we really know about the seahawk? Here are some fun facts—and fictions—about the most famous animal in professional sports.
What is a seahawk?
Actually, there is no such thing. No ornithologist would refer to them as such. (They don’t even spell it as one word.) Some people, though, consider “sea hawks” to be a nickname for ospreys or skuas.
Ospreys are found on every continent except Antarctica, while skuas are migratory birds found from the North Pole to the South Pole (Good luck trying to find one in North America, though. They rarely come ashore.) Skuas have a reputation for being relentless when it comes to scoring a meal, battling and even killing other birds over fish; role models for 300-pound men after a touchdown (minus the killing, of course.)
So, do the Seahawks use an Osprey or skua as their live mascot?
Neither. In fact, it is illegal to use native Ospreys for commercial purposes. Instead, the team rallies around a captive-bred 10-year-old Augur Hawk named Taima. Don’t bother looking for her wild cousins around Puget Sound; Augur Hawks are mainly found in the arid mountains of Africa.
Is the Seahawks’ logo actually an Osprey?
Once again, nope. Look close enough and you’ll see that the thickness of the bill is all wrong, not to mention the wild purples, blues, and greens bear no resemblance to the browns and blacks of Ospreys.
But scientific accuracy wasn’t really the point. In reality, the logo is nod to one of the Seattle region’s many Native communities—the Kwakwaka’wakw nation. The many brightly colored ceremonial masks of the Kwakwaka’wakw each had their own ritual or religious meaning. One in particular was the “transformation” mask; it’s painted like a “thunderbird,” a quasi-mythological version of an eagle. The team’s helmets reference the thunderbird mask, opening and closing like raptor beaks. (According to the Seahawks website, Taima means "thunder," though it's unclear in what language.)
How did they become the Seattle Seahawks?
After Seattle received an NFL franchise in 1974, the owners held a name-the-team contest that attracted over 20,000 submissions. Around 150 contestants suggested the Seahawks, the nickname of a few local high schools and colleges, and it was chosen one of five finalists along with the Mariners, Evergreens, Olympics and Sockeyes. The Seahawks then won out with the support of NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Are they first professional team to use the nickname “Seahawks”?
No. The Post-Intelligencer reports that Seattle had a Seahawks hockey team from 1934 to 1940, and that Miami had a Seahawks football team in the 1940s.
Blitz Seattle Seahawks PZLZ Mascot
Everyone knows one of the most fun parts of gameday is encountering the mascot. Now you can enjoy that fun in the comfort of your home by building this Blitz Seattle Seahawks PZLZ Mascot.
- Approximately 51 lightweight, pop-able pieces in total
- Assembles into 3D team mascot that lets you show off your team spirit AND your building skills
- Approximately 12” x 7” when fully assembled, so it might look a little out of place trying to launch t-shirts into a crowd of screaming fans, but it will look great on your desk
- Recommended for ages 7 and up
- Pieces are lightweight, popable cardboard
- Officially licensed
- Imported
- PZLZ®
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“Taima” The NFL Washington Seahawks Mascot
The newest member of the Seahawks family is Taima the Hawk. Named by Seahawks fans, Taima (which means “thunder”) is quickly becoming a fixture of Seahawks Sundays at Century Link Field. Since 2007 he has been the first one out of the tunnel leading the team on to the field before each home game.
Taima is actually an Augur Buzzard (Buteo augur) who is a nine-year old, male, African, bird of prey. Their, coloring and size are similar to an American Osprey; however unlike an Osprey (or “sea hawk”), Auguar Buzzards are not seafaring birds and will eat small ground mammals, snakes, lizards, small ground birds, insects, and carrion.
(Osprey with Bass)
If the team was going for authenticity and a native Northern Pacific bird of prey, it would have used an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus). Osprey’s are seafaring birds, with very distinctive black and white coloring and large wingspans up to five feet across. Like owls, they have reversible toes so that they can hold larger prey and fly more quickly without tiring like an eagle would. They are adaptive to human activity and often nest on land. — When you visit The Cove, it is not uncommon to see an Osprey flying in lazy circles above Lake Billy Chinook searching for lunch.
Taima was selected as the team’s mascot because The United States Fish & Wildlife Department prohibits the use of the native birds for commercial purposes. Even if you are not a football fan, tune into the next game for a few minutes, it is always fun to watch Taima, the buzzard, rally the crowd.
14 Fun Facts About Sea Hawks
You love wildlife. You have absolutely no interest in football. Yet, due to the idiosyncrasies of American culture, you're inevitably forced to watch exactly one football game per year: the Super Bowl.
Take heart. This year's game features two teams with animal mascots. Two rather charismatic animals, in fact. We've got you covered with 14 fun facts scientists have learned about each of them. Feel free to toss them out during a lull in the game's action.
1. There's no such thing as a "seahawk."
The Seattle franchise might spell it as one word, but biologists don't. In fact, they don't even use the term to refer to one particular species.
You could use the name sea hawk to refer to an osprey (pictured above) or a skua (itself a term that covers a group of seven related species of seabirds). Both groups share a number of characteristics, including a fish-based diet.
The Seattle Seahawks' mascot is actually an augur hawk (pictured above), not a sea hawk. Photo by Matt Edmonds
2. The Seattle Seahawks' "seahawk" isn't actually a sea hawk.
Before every home game, the team releases a trained bird named Taima to fly out of the tunnel before the players, lead them onto the field and get the crowd jazzed up for the game. But the nine-year-old bird is an augur hawk (also known as an augur buzzard), native to Africa, not a seafaring species that can properly be called a sea hawk.
David Knutson, the falconer who trained Taima, originally wanted an osprey for authenticity's sake, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service prohibited him from using a native bird for commercial purposes. Instead, he ordered an augur hawk hatchling—which has markings roughly similar to an osprey—from St. Louis' World Bird Sanctuary and trained it to deal with the noise and chaos of a raucous football game.
The range of the main osprey species (Pandion haliaetus), shown in blue, covers every continent except Antarctica. A different species, the eastern osprey, lives in Australia. Image via Wikimedia Commons
3. Ospreys live on every continent besides Antarctica.
Although they hunt over water, ospreys generally nest on land, within a few miles of either the ocean or a body of fresh water. Unlike most bird species, they are remarkably widespread, and even more surprising, nearly all these widely dispersed ospreys (with the exception of the eastern osprey, native to Australia) are part of one species.
Ospreys that live at temperate latitudes migrate to the tropics for the winter, before heading back to their home area for the summer breeding season. Other ospreys live in the tropics year-round, but also return to the specific nesting grounds (the same ones where they were born) each summer for breeding.
4. Ospreys have reversible toes.
Most other hawks and falcons have their talons arranged in a static pattern: three in the front, and one angled towards the back, as shown in the illustration on the left. But ospreys, like owls, have a unique configuration that lets them slide their toes back and forth, so they can create a two-and-two configuration (shown as #2). This helps them more firmly grip tubular-shaped fish as they fly through the air. They also frequently turn the fish to a position parallel to their flying direction, for aerodynamic purposes.
5. Ospreys have closable nostrils.
The predatory birds typically fly between 50 and 100 feet above the water before spotting a shallow-swimming fish (such as pike, carp or trout) and diving in for the kill. To avoid getting water up their noses, they have long-slitted nostrils that they can close voluntarily—one of the adaptations that allows them to consume a diet made up of 99 percent fish.
6. Ospreys usually mate for life.
After a male osprey reaches the age of three, upon returning to his natal nesting area for the summer breeding season in May, he stakes claim to a spot and begins performing an elaborate flight ritual overhead—often flying in a wave pattern while clutching a fish or nesting material in his talons—to attract a mate.
A female responds to his flight by landing at the nesting spot and eating the fish he supplies to her. Afterward, they begin building a nest together out of sticks, twigs, seaweed and other materials. Once bonded, the pair reunites every mating season for the rest of their lives (on average, they live about 30 years), only searching out other mates if one of the birds dies.
7. The osprey species is at least 11 million years old.
Fossils found in southern California show that ospreys were around in the Mid-Miocene, which occurred 15 to 11 million years ago. Although the particular species found have since gone extinct, they were recognizably osprey-like and assigned to their genus.
8. In the Middle Ages, people believed ospreys had magical powers.
It was widely though that if a fish looked up at an osprey, it would be somehow mesmerized by the sight of it. This would cause the fish to give itself up to the predator—a belief referenced in Act IV of Shakespeare's Coriolanus: "I think he'll be to Rome/As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it/By sovereignty of nature."
A pomarine skua, frequently called a sea hawk. Photo by Patrick Coin
9. Skuas steal much of their food.
Unlike ospreys, skuas (the other birds often called "sea hawks") obtain much of their fish diet through a less noble strategy: kleptoparasitism. This means that a skua will wait until a gull, tern or other bird catches a fish, then chase after it and attack it, forcing it to eventually drop its catch so the skua can steal it. They're rather brazen in their extortion attempts—in some cases, they'll successfully steal from a bird three times their weight. During the winter, as much as 95 percent of a skua's diet can be obtained through theft.
10. Some skuas kill other birds, including penguins.
Although fish makes up the majority of their diet, some skuas use their aggressiveness to not only steal the catch away from other birds, but occasionally to kill them. South Polar skuas, in particular, are notorious for attacking penguin nesting sites, snapping up penguin chicks and eating them whole:
Skua attacks penguin, steals chicks and eats them whole (graphic)11. Skuas will attack anything that comes near their nests, including humans.
The birds are extremely aggressive in defending their young (perhaps from seeing firsthand what happens to less protective parents, like penguins) and will dive at the head of any animal that approaches their nest. This even applies to humans, with skuas occasionally injuring people in the act of defending their chicks.
12. Sometimes, skuas will fake injuries to distract predators.
In especially desperate situations, the birds will sometimes resort to a remarkably ingenious tactic: a distraction display, which involves an adult bird luring a predator away from a nest full of vulnerable skua chicks, generally by faking an injury. The predator (often a larger gull, hawk or eagle) follows the seemingly-debilitated skua away from the nest, intent on obtaining a larger meal, and then the skua miraculously flies away at full strength, having saved its offspring along with itself.
13. Skuas are attentive parents.
All this aggressiveness has a reasonable justification. Skuas (which mate for life, like ospreys) are attentive parents, guarding their chicks through a 57-day fledging process each year. Fathers, in particular, take on most of the responsibility, obtaining food for the chicks daily (whether by theft or honest hunting) during the entire period.
14. Some skuas migrate from the poles to the equator each year.
Among the most remarkable of all skua behaviors is the fact that pomarine skuas, which spend the summer nesting on Arctic tundra North of Russia and Canada, fly all the way down to the tropical waters off Africa and Central America each winter, a journey of several thousand miles. Next time you're judging the birds for their piratical ways, remember that they're fueling up for one of the longest journeys in the animal kingdom.
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The choice of an osprey as the team's mascot is also a nod to the Pacific Northwest region, where these birds are commonly found. Blitz has become a beloved figure among Seahawks fans, often seen cheering on the team during games and engaging with the crowd. The mascot's high-energy antics and entertaining performances add to the overall excitement and atmosphere of Seahawks' home games.
In addition to his on-field presence, Blitz is also involved in community outreach programs and charitable events. The mascot regularly visits schools, hospitals, and local events to interact with fans and support various causes. This involvement helps to foster a strong connection between the team and its fan base. Overall, the name "Blitz" perfectly captures the spirit and intensity of the Seattle Seahawks. With his charismatic personality and unwavering support for the team, Blitz has become an integral part of the Seahawks' identity and a beloved figure among football fans in Seattle and beyond..
Reviews for "From Concept to Reality: The Birth of the Seattle Seahawk Mascot Name"
- Jake Smith - 2 stars - I was really disappointed when I heard that the Seattle Seahawks chose the name "Seahawk Mascot" for their team. It's such a generic and unoriginal choice. I was hoping for something more unique and representative of the city or team's history. "Seahawk Mascot" just sounds like a name that was picked out at the last minute without much thought or creativity. I would have expected better from a professional football team.
- Emily Johnson - 1 star - The name "Seahawk Mascot" for the Seattle Seahawks is just plain lazy. It lacks any imagination or effort. I think a team's mascot name should have some meaning or connection to the team or city, but this name doesn't offer anything. It's like they didn't even bother trying. Plus, it's way too generic and doesn't stand out at all. Overall, a major disappointment in terms of creativity.
- Michael Thompson - 2 stars - I can't believe the Seattle Seahawks settled on "Seahawk Mascot" as their team name. It sounds like something a middle school sports team would come up with, not a professional football team. The lack of creativity is just baffling. It's a missed opportunity to create something iconic and unique. I expected better from such a well-established and respected franchise. This name is just a letdown.