Crested Honey Buzzard

The crested honey buzzard is a fairly large raptor, 57–60cm long and 750–1,490g, larger than the European honey buzzard. It has a small, pigeon-like head on a long neck without a strong brow ridge, a long tail and a short crest, and is brown above and paler below with a dark throat stripe. Unusually for a large raptor the sexes differ: the male has a blue-grey head, brown eyes and two black tail bands, while the slightly larger, darker female has a brown head, yellow eyes and three tail bands (Wikipedia, general species account).

It feeds mainly on the larvae of bees and wasps taken from combs, and is well adapted to its diet: an elongated head for digging at underground nests, a grooved tongue for extracting grubs, and dense, scale-like feathers on the head and neck that protect it from stings. It prefers well-forested country with open spaces from sea level to 1,800m. Some birds breed in Siberia and Japan and winter further south, while others are resident. SoIB 2023 lists it as resident and a winter migrant in India, finds its trends stable, and rates it a Low conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).