Honey buzzards, a male and a female? Lunigiana, Italy (1 Viewer)

[Kinthissa]

26 July mid-morning, a large brown raptor took off from our hill. Immediately after, in the same area on the hill, I saw two Honey buzzards.

First one (photos 1 - 5) ... according to all the tuition I've received on the forum in previous years, I believe this is a male ~ ink-dipped fingers, clear black border along flight feathers, large spacing between final two bars on the tail?

Kinthissa

 

[Kinthissa]

When the bird in the preceding post flew off up the hill and I took my eye off the camera, I noticed another bird perched three posts down from the one I had just filmed. Is this individual (photos 1 - 5 below) a female?

I'm now getting ambitious! Apart from the more diffused black of 'fingertips' and along the edge of the flight feathers, the underwing patterning shows the dark area reaching the body. Is this an identifying feature of females in most cases? I'm not sure about the barring of the tail, if there is more even spacing as there generally is in females.

It uttered lots of little calls (video clip at http://pix.de40.eu/raptors/16g26/).

Our introduction to Honeys was 4 years ago when Tom identified a male perched in amongst the grasses on this same hill, and last year I posted one Honey perched on a bush ripping bits off a disk which Nutcracker identified as a wasp's comb. Somewhere up this slope is a wasps' nest.

They've now been coming to this slope for many years, we used to think they were Common buzzards.
By the way, where are the Common buzzards this year? I have only seen one this summer!

Kinthissa

 

[tconzemi]

26 July mid-morning, a large brown raptor took off from our hill. Immediately after, in the same area on the hill, I saw two Honey buzzards.

First one (photos 1 - 5) ... according to all the tuition I've received on the forum in previous years, I believe this is a male ~ ink-dipped fingers, clear black border along flight feathers, large spacing between final two bars on the tail?

Kinthissa

Correct

 

[tconzemi]

When the bird in the preceding post flew off up the hill and I took my eye off the camera, I noticed another bird perched three posts down from the one I had just filmed. Is this individual (photos 1 - 5 below) a female?

I'm now getting ambitious! Apart from the more diffused black of 'fingertips' and along the edge of the flight feathers, the underwing patterning shows the dark area reaching the body. Is this an identifying feature of females in most cases? I'm not sure about the barring of the tail, if there is more even spacing as there generally is in females.

It uttered lots of little calls (video clip at http://pix.de40.eu/raptors/16g26/).

Our introduction to Honeys was 4 years ago when Tom identified a male perched in amongst the grasses on this same hill, and last year I posted one Honey perched on a bush ripping bits off a disk which Nutcracker identified as a wasp's comb. Somewhere up this slope is a wasps' nest.

They've now been coming to this slope for many years, we used to think they were Common buzzards.
By the way, where are the Common buzzards this year? I have only seen one this summer!

Kinthissa

Again correct, the barring is a bit difficult to see most probably due to motion blur. Also look at the head, grey in males and far less in females, although some females can show quite a lot of grey around the eye. The difference is obvious in these 2 birds

 

[Kinthissa]

Thank you, Tom.

I'm wondering about the soft little calls on the two videoclips I captured of the above Honeys. The two clips are at

http://pix.de40.eu/raptors/16g26/honeys.html

The second clip shows the female uttering the calls. Does anyone on the forum know about this kind of call? the second clip is right after the male had just flown off up the hill, presumably to the wasps' nest. Would she be calling to him, or is she communicating with yet another Honey?

The episode began with me catching sight of a large brown raptor take off from the hill flying downslope. Immediately after, I saw the male (my first post above), those soft calls are also audible in that first clip. When he took off, I saw the female (second post above).

I realize we're getting beyond ID matters, but I'm taking the chance to pose an intriguing question. I had never heard these soft calls before.

Kinthissa

 

[tconzemi]

Thank you, Tom.

I'm wondering about the soft little calls on the two videoclips I captured of the above Honeys. The two clips are at

http://pix.de40.eu/raptors/16g26/honeys.html

I realize we're getting beyond ID matters, but I'm taking the chance to pose an intriguing question. I had never heard these soft calls before.

Kinthissa

Honnestly I do not know a lot about calls of HB, the right place to check them is here
http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Pernis-apivorus
you will find flight and alarm calls of male and female as well as juvenile calls

 

[Biancone]

Hi Kinthissa,
I have never heard a Honey call while on the ground so cannot help with your call question! My laptop has really terrible sound, and it did sound at first a little like a distant Common Buzzard juvenile food-begging or contact call (quite a thin 'piping' note), and I wondered if you were mistaken about the origin, but then it does seem at a couple of points to match the Honey's beak movement! And the call does sound a bit like a note chopped out of the Honey typical more extended flight call, and much quieter. I don't recall finding anything the same on xeno-canto, but that was a while ago, so worth investigating for sure.
To pick up a point in your earlier post, I have certainly seen fewer Common Buzzards around 'my' patch on the north side of the Apennines this season. Honeys have mainly been hard to find but some days I've seen more Honeys than Commons. Perhaps the rather high numbers recently are more than the landscape can sustain long term? But they can still be very tied up with food procurement, and when all the young are flying there may suddenly be lots in the air again; see what August brings.
Cheers, Brian

 

[Kinthissa]

Many thanks, Tom and Brian.

Most helpful to be able to go directly to the HB recordings on xeno-canto. I would say none of the ones I checked had the soft and intimate quality of what I heard on the 26th, which was a close communication, not really 'calls' as such. I heard the sounds while I was filming the first HB, and when I was recording the second clip, I was aware that those sounds were coming from the bird that was in my frame ~ you can see the beak opening and closing in sync with the sounds during the first 6 seconds, and again at around 19 seconds.

Below (no.1) is a snapshot of the second Honey of 26 July, taken right before the videoclip. A pair of them are certainly around in the valley, and today, one HB flew over the house calling persistently to a distant companion as it headed south. Am I right in thinking this bird of 4 August (no.2 below) is a male?

 

[tconzemi]

Am I right in thinking this bird of 4 August (no.2 below) is a male?

Yes you are

 

[kb57]

On the subject of HB calls, I had one fly over me while calling in NE England last August (probably a migrant) - I heard it before I saw it and thought it was going to be a wader, very unlike all common buzzard calls, and was somewhat surprised when a large raptor appeared over the treeline. I subsequently read that they have been compared to grey plover - listen to what is currently the first HB recording and the third grey plover recording on xeno-canto, and you'll see they're not so far apart!