• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Where premium quality meets exceptional value. ZEISS Conquest HDX.

Oriental Honey Buzzard - BirdForum Opus

(Redirected from Oriental Honey-buzzard)

Alternative name: Crested Honey Buzzard

Includes: Sunda Honeybuzzard

Subspecies P. p. torquatus
Photo © by the late Laurence Poh
near Ipoh, Malaysia
Pernis ptilorhynchus

Identification

52–68 cm (20½-26¾ in)
The male has a blue-grey head, while the female's head is brown. She is slightly larger and darker than the male. The male has a black tail with a white band, whilst the female resembles female European Honey Buzzard.

Similar Species

Subspecies P. p. ruficollis
Photo © by Alok Tewari
Dist. Jamnagar, Gujarat, India, 20 December 2017

Not easy to distinguish from European Honey Buzzard, which overlap in the Middle East[1].

Distribution

Siberia east to Japan and south to India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and The Philippines. Northern populations are migratory

Taxonomy

Considered conspecific with European Honey Buzzard by some authors.

Reference [5] notes that differences in DNA and morphology support a split into 2 species: "Oriental Honeybuzzard" (strict sense), P. orientalis, with subspecies orientalis, philippensis and ruficollis; and "Sunda Honeybuzzard", P. ptilorhynchus with palawanensis, ptilorhynchus and torquatus. Some sources think this should be three species.

Subspecies

Clements recognises the following subspecies [1]:

Habitat

Subspecies P. p. orientalis : Migrating female
Photo © by stoop
Yamamoto Mountain, Ojiya, Niigata, Japan, September 2011

A variety of woodland, with a preference for broadleafed trees.

Behaviour

Diet

It is a specialist feeder, living mainly on the larvae and nests of wasps, although it will take other small prey.

References

  1. Clements, J. F., P. C. Rasmussen, T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, A. Spencer, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2023. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2023. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
  2. Gill, F, D Donsker, and P Rasmussen (Eds). 2023. IOC World Bird List (v 13.2). Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.13.2. http://www.worldbirdnames.org/
  3. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved Jan 2018)
  4. Birdforum thread discussing separating this species from Eurasian Honey Buzzard
  5. Eaton, JA, B van Balen, NW Brickle, FE Rheindt 2021. Birds of the Indonesian Archipelago (Greater Sundas and Wallacea), Second Edition. Lynx Editions. ISBN978-84-16728-44-2

External Links

GSearch checked for 2020 platform.1

Back
Top