Reported Honey Buzzards: Totals by Month 2005 and Comments

Figures from Birdguides with additions from other sources: * from Birding World (Biscay); † from Birdwatch.

These totals are not directly comparable with the presumed migrant totals compiled by British Birds. The records above are unchecked and may include breeding sites, though each breeding site will only feature once per month. On the other hand not all records are submitted to the Birdguides and other reporting systems. Bird Forum does not record the numbers in each report by an observer, so taking each report as involving one bird (as Birding World appear to do) gives a total that is too low.

Notes:

April: Again more records than in the past but not as many as in 2004. The first sighting was on 19^th.

May: The total was equal to last year's high total of 64. South east England recorded by far the most with 26 noted including 11 in Kent. Eight to nine were in four other English areas (Midlands, South West, East Anglia, North East) and four in Scotland. The arrival was fairly even through the month with seven on 29^th the biggest single day movement. As many as 44 of the 64 were noted on the 11 weekends/bank holidays in the month. The same pattern of increased numbers reported on 'non-working' days was noted last year in May. Taking the two years together in May, the numbers noted are 88 in 23 leisure days and 40 in 39 working days. This is a very significant difference – almost four per leisure day and just over one per working day. It suggests that with weekend-observer coverage throughout, 118 would be noted during the month. Of course this is still likely to be a substantial under-recording of the true total. Observer coverage is never total and some birds will simply fly too high to be seen. Winds were often NW in the month so the birds noted are likely to have been British breeders rather than Scandinavian drift migrants.

June: A similar total to last year's with, as in May, most from south east England. It is becoming obvious that the Honey Buzzard is a broad-front migrant into Britain with significant movements observed all along the south coast from Kent to Cornwall. No accurate census is going to be possible with such a pattern of migration as it is not possible to cover intensively such a long coast line.

July: A very low total – the lowest since this series was first compiled in 2001. Last year the storms in July apparently created some early nesting failures and an unusually early return movement. This year maybe the birds are sitting tight.

August: Little activity was noted until 29^th with ten birds out of a total of 31 seen in the last three days. Regionally most were in the south east of England or in East Anglia. Four S/SW over Luccombe, Isle of Wight, on 29^th was the start of a very interesting series of autumn records at this site. The total this year is now running at 137 compared to 178 at the same point last year. This year the midsummer totals were particularly poor as the species seemed to settle down well to breed. It is possible that juvenile passage will be stronger this year.

September: The total of 69 was well above last year's 50 with 18 in south east England and 15 in north east England. At Luccombe, Isle of Wight, seven were seen up to 13^th making a total of 11 from 29^th August. The Isle of Wight is due south of the Scottish/English border and indeed was the likely crossing point of the adult male tracked from Inverness via Riding Mill (Northumberland) in September 2002. Overall peak passage was from 2^nd-8^th when 43 were noted. Only ten were noted after 18^th. Juvenile passage which occurs mainly from 20^th (personal observations, satellite tracking) appears to have been largely overlooked as the pattern of observations nationally this year (high numbers in May and early September, low numbers in June and July) suggests a good breeding season.

Note: the final total for Luccombe was 13 birds from 29/8-13/9 ( WightVogels monthly archive) with 13/9 two, 11/9 one, 8/9 one, 7/9 four, 1/9 one; 29/8 four. The statistics above include just the 11 reported on Birdguides.

October: The total of four is similar to the five noted last year. The last sighting of a bird in Northumberland this year was apparently the 1^st so it looks as if a quick exit has happened again this year.

Overall: A further fall in numbers from 233 in 2004 to 210 in 2005, bringing back the total to slightly below that for 2001 when 218 were noted. However, passage numbers were quite reasonable in 2005 with smaller numbers noted during the breeding season and at the very end of the breeding season. Juvenile Honey Buzzards are probably being significantly under-recorded because of identification problems. A discussion on the closeness of the appearance of Honey Buzzard juveniles to Common Buzzard has recently been published (Duff, 2006), which hopefully will encourage observers to look more critically at migrating medium-sized raptors before dismissing them as the largely sedentary Common Buzzard.

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