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Buzzards Migrating over Egypt April 2019 (1 Viewer)

GeorginaEgypt

GeorginaEgypt

Well-known member
Egypt
These birds migrate at the same time as the storks over Egypt twice per year.

I have never seen so many in one flock. Are they just buzzards please, or different types?

These photos were taken beginning of April 2019 right over my roof terrace in El Gouna on the Red Sea Coast of Egypt.

Apologies for poor quality, they were so high.

Buzzard flock April 2019.jpg


Buzzards 1st April 2019.jpg
 
This is a close up I took September 2017. Comparing the markings online it looks like a Honey Buzzard?

European Honey Buzzard Pernis apivorus 4th September 2017.jpg

European Honey Buzzard
Pernis apivorus
 
Post #5 is a Honey Buzzard.

Post #6 first bird is a Black Kite, then all Honey Buzzards with the exception of the upper right bird in the last picture which is a Buzzard.
 
So this Honey Buzzard (?) I stumbled across by accident. I had been with a group climbing up the small mountain opposite town, and walking back in the heat alone through El Gouna Farm searching for our driver.

Buzzard location.jpg

I suddenly spotted this and it had something in its mouth which I thought was a stick.

Honey Buzzard1 may 2015.jpg

When it took off, whatever it had in its mouth was bending.

Honey Buzzard kite take off 1 may 2015.jpg

Then straight again.

Honey Buzzard take off 2 1 may 2015.jpg

Don't know of any red snakes in the area. Plenty of horned vipers (Cerastes vipera) !
 
honey buzzards in post 5 and 6 (pics 2-4) while #6, pic 1 is a black kite.
the bird in post 11 looks like a juvenile buteo (buteo) cirtensis (north african buzzard).
 
lou salomon said:
honey buzzards in post 5 and 6 (pics 2-4) while #6, pic 1 is a black kite.
the bird in post 11 looks like a juvenile buteo (buteo) cirtensis (north african buzzard).
Click to expand...

Does cirtensis extend all the way across North Africa to the Red Sea coast? Or will this be 'proper' Long-legged Buzzard?

Steve
 
Steve Lister said:
Does cirtensis extend all the way across North Africa to the Red Sea coast? Or will this be 'proper' Long-legged Buzzard?

Steve
Click to expand...

Jowers et al 2019 focused on the taxa within the Buzzard superspecies via a battery of DNA techniques. Amongst their conclusions is that taxon cirtensis is best considered an allospecies of Common Buzzard, but it does have some rufinus ancestry as well...
MJB

Jowers, MJ, S Sánchez-Ramírez, S Lopes, I Karyakin, V Dombrovski, A, Qninba, T Valkenburg, N Onofre, N Ferrand, P Beja, L, Palma and R Godinho. 2019. Unravelling population processes over the Late Pleistocene driving contemporary genetic divergence in Palearctic Buzzards, Mol. Phyl. Gen. & Evol. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.02.004
 
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