Crested Honey Buzzard, IBRCE, Israel 20 April 2018
ROLLING UP TO THE IBRCE on 20 April, an interesting raptor was soaring over the Jordan border crossing. Binos through the windscreen, it immediately looked like a Crested Honey Buzzard, so we came to an abrupt halt and piled out of the van in time to get some nice views of it almost overhead before it spiraled out of sight into the midday haze.
The most striking feature was the relative proportion of the wings and tail, obvious immediately, with the tail length shorter than the breadth of the wing base and the hands as broad as the arms. Described as eagle-like by Dick Forsman. Added to this, the long 5th primary (which forms a step in the wing tip with the shorter 4th primary), grey head, dark gorget, lack of dark carpal patches, sparse underwing barring with a broad dark trailing edge and distinctive undertail barring meant we were looking at an adult male Crested Honey Buzzard. Get in!
However, the possibility of a hybrid with European Honey Buzzard needs to be ruled out as Dick Forman writes about claims of Crested Honey Buzzards in the Middle East ‘photographs of alleged Cresteds have revealed that a considerable number of the claimed birds actually show a combination of features from both species’. Looking closely at my photos the iris appears dark, which is a feature of adult and there is a suggestion of a dark bill tip, which also fits this ID. In male Crested HB the flight feather barring crosses all the primary bases as on this bird but to me does not meet the body clear of the secondary coverts as Dick states is diagnostic. However, I’m not sure how variable or important this feature is, as it seems to be the only thing I can find that does not fit perfectly with this bird being an adult Crested HB. The following is a series of images of the bird soaring from several angles.