European honey buzzard

Where the tracked European honey buzzards are now

Each dot is one tagged bird's most recent position.

About European honey buzzards

The honey buzzard is a bird of prey that digs its dinner out of the ground. It follows social wasps back to their burrows and scrapes the combs out with its feet, down to 40 cm deep, protected from the stings by dense, scale-like head feathering. It is with us for barely four months — in during May, gone by September, bound for the rainforest belt of equatorial Africa.

How European honey buzzards migrate

Honey buzzards leave early. Departure from central Europe begins in mid to late August and is over by the end of September, with a pronounced peak across the Netherlands in the last days of August. Adults funnel south-west through France and Iberia and cross at Gibraltar, then spend roughly October to early April in the lowland evergreen rainforest of equatorial and West Africa, from Guinea east to Cameroon, Gabon and Congo. Return passage runs from late April into early June, with the main arrival in May. The best-documented change here is not short-stopping — this is still an obligate long-distance migrant — but a change with age: juveniles set off two to three weeks after their parents, take the central Mediterranean route over Italy, Sicily and Malta, often remain in Africa through their whole second and third calendar year, and switch routes as they mature.

Key facts

Length

50–60 cm

Wingspan

113–150 cm (sources disagree markedly)

Leaves

Mid-August to mid-September, peaking in late August; juveniles 2–3 weeks after the adults

Returns

Late April to early June, mostly in May

Winters in

Lowland rainforest of equatorial and West Africa — Guinea east to Cameroon, Gabon and Congo

Changing habits

No short-stopping; what changes is the route with age. Juveniles migrate later and via Italy and Malta. In the Netherlands the breeding range widened after 1975 and the dune woodlands were colonised around 2000

Population

4,000–6,000 pairs in Germany (Red List: Vorwarnliste, stable); 330–400 in the Netherlands (2018–2020); about 145,000 in Europe

Is migration happening right now?

Weather radar over the Benelux and Germany measures how many birds are aloft, updated every five minutes. See it for Belgium, the Netherlands or Germany, or watch every tagged bird on the live map.