Pernis ptilorhynchus

Little Rann of Kutch, Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, Pench National Park & Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve

Continuing the series on buzzards, today is about a large resident raptor of lowland & montane broad leaf and mixed forests - the Oriental Honey Buzzard. The Oriental Honey Buzzard is well-known for their tendency to congregate in large flocks of up to thousands during migration. They have an unusually small and slender head, a long striped tail, broad wings, and well-striped underwings which make them easily recognisable and they also show considerable plumage variation throughout their range. True to their name, this species is a raider of wasp and bee nests, although it prefers bee and wasp larvae over their honey.

The Oriental Honey Buzzard is also known as the Crested Honey Buzzard. And despite its name, is not related to Buteo Buzzards, and is taxonomically closer to the kites.

Little Rann of Kutch

The Rann of Kutch (alternately spelled as Kuchchh) is a large area of salt marshes that spans the border between India and Pakistan. It is located mostly in the Kutch district of the Indian state of Gujarat, with a minor portion extending into the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is divided into the Great Rann and Little Rann.

The Rann of Kutch covers around 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 square miles). The Great Rann of Kutch is the larger portion of the Rann and it extends east and west, with the Thar Desert to the north and the low hills of Kutch to the south. The Indus River Delta lies to the west in southern Pakistan. The Little Rann of Kutch lies southeast of the Great Rann, and extends southwards to the Gulf of Kutch. Many rivers originating in Rajasthan and Gujarat flow into the Rann of Kutch, including the Luni, Bhuki, Bharud, Nara, Kharod, Banas, Saraswati, Rupen, Bambhan, and Machchhu. Kori Creek and Sir Creek, tidal creeks which are part of the Indus River Delta, are located at the western end of the Great Rann.

The surface is generally flat and very close to sea level, and most of the Rann floods annually during the monsoon season. There are areas of sandy higher ground, known as bets or medaks, which lie two to three metres above flood level. Read more about the Khadir Bet island where I talk about Dholavira later. Trees and shrubs grow on the bets, and they provide refuges for wildlife during the annual floods. The climate of the ecoregion is subtropical. Temperatures average 44 °C during the hot summer months, and can reach highs of 50 °C and during the winter the temperature can drop to or below freezing.

Rainfall is highly seasonal with the Rann being dry for most of the year, and rainfall is concentrated in the June to September monsoon season. During the monsoon season, local rainfall and river runoff flood much of the Rann to a depth of 0.5 metres. The waters evaporate during the long dry season, leaving the Rann dry again by the start of the next monsoon season.

The Rann of Kutch is the only large flooded grasslands zone in the Indomalayan realm. The area has desert on one side and the sea on the other enables various ecosystems, including mangroves and desert vegetation. Its grasslands and deserts are home to forms of wildlife that have adapted to its often harsh conditions. These include endemic and endangered animal and plant species. The predominant vegetation in the Rann of Kutch is grassland and thorn scrub. Common grass species include Apluda aristata, Cenchrus spp., Pennisetum spp., Cymbopogon spp., Eragrostis spp., and Elionurus spp.

Very unique to this Rann, are the shrubs and wetlands, as well as the colonies of flamingos, which make it one of the rarest sites on earth. Established in 1973, under the Wildlife Protection Act, the WildAss Sanctuary protects the endangered (Schedule - I) and endemic Indian Wild Ass (Equus Hemionus Khur) popularly known as Khur or Ghudkhur. Trees are rare except on the bets which rise above the flood zone. The non-native tree Prosopis juliflorahas become established on the bets, and its seed pods provide year-round food for the Near Threatened Indian Wild Ass. The Little Rann of Kutch Wildlife Sanctuary is a desolate area in western Gujarat, a refuge for the endangered Indian Wild Ass and one of the few places where the ass survives in the wild. Interestingly, this animal has its only gene pool in the Little Rann. This biogeographical region is a part of desert, but is unlike the neighbouring sandy desert in Rajasathan or elsewhere in the world.

The Little Rann of Kutch is located around 100 kilometres north of Ahmedabad on an ancient trading route dating back to early neolithic settlements. It was later inhabited by the Indus Valley civilisation as well as the Maurya and Gupta empires of India. I have written about one of the mega cities from the times of the Indus Valley Civilisation, known locally as Kotada timba - Dholavira. The people of the Indus civilization appear to have settled in the Rann of Kutch around 3500 BCE. The Indus city of Dholavira, the largest Indus site in India, is located here in the Rann of Kutch. Its location is on the Tropic of Cancer and it is one of the five largest Harappan sites and the most prominent site in India possibly indicating that Dholavira’s inhabitants were skilled in astronomy.

Many Indologists such as A. S. Gaur and Mani Murali hold the view that the Rann of Kutch was, rather than the salt marsh that it is today, a navigable archipelago at the time of the Indus Civilization. The Indus Civilization was known to have an extensive maritime trade system, so it has been proposed by Gaur et al. that there were perhaps ports in the Rann of Kutch.

Read about the Harappan mega city of Dholavira.

Pench National Park

Pench National Park, nestled in the heart of India in the lower southern reaches of the Satpura hills, sprawls a massive 758 sq. kms. (293 sq mi) across the states of Madhya Pradesh & Maharashtra. In Madhya Pradesh it is located in the districts of Seoni and Chhindwara. Named after the pristine River Pench it was immortalised by Rudyard Kipling in his Jungle Book. Every year millions make their way here to spot Akela (the Indian Wolf), Baloo (the Sloth Bear), Bagheera (the Black Panther) and Shere Khan (the Royal Bengal Tiger). It was declared a sanctuary in 1965 and elevated to the status of national park in 1975 and enlisted as a tiger reserve in 1992. The area has always been rich in wildlife dominated by fairly open canopy, mixed forests with considerable shrub cover and open grassy patches. The high habitat heterogeneity favours a high population of Chital and Sambhar. Pench tiger reserve has highest density of herbivores in India (90.3 animals per sq km).

Pench has a glorious history of natural wealth and unique cultural richness described in several classics ranging from the Ain-e-Akbari to the Jungle Book. Several natural history books like Strendale’s “Seonee - Camplife in the Satpuras” & Forsyth’s “Highlands of Central India” present a detailed panorama of these forests. 

The forest, lush and green in the monsoon, also harbours a wide range of faunal species some of which figure prominently in the IUCN Red List. Pench National Park also was the location used by the BBC for the innovative wildlife series Tiger: Spy in the Jungle, a three-part documentary narrated by Sir David Attenborough which used concealed cameras, placed by elephants, in order to capture intimate tiger behaviour and also retrieved footage of various other fauna in the reserve. The programme aired for the first time in March 2008 and ended a month later.

That was about the habitat frequented by this beautiful raptor. Now onto the bird itself.

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Oriental Honey Buzzard

The Oriental Honey Buzzard (Pernis ptilorhynchus) is a bird of prey is often seen soaring overhead. It is easy to identify, even in flight, given its long pigeon or cuckoo-like head and neck with broader black-and-white bands on its tail. It is also called the Crested Honey Buzzard but its stunted crest is hardly ever visible. This bird gets its name because of its fondness for bees and wasps, particularly their larvae and nests. The honey-buzzard has tough scale-like feathers on its face, near its beak, which allows it to feed at honeycombs with some protection against bee stings. The honey-buzzard has been known to tear down honeycombs and carry it away to feed on itself, or for its young. It has also been observed to feed on bees, wasps, and their larvae.

This buzzard is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae, which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as kites, eagles, and harriers. Pernis ptilorhynchus has six subspecies. As a medium-sized raptor, their size ranges between 57–60 cm (22–24 in). They are also known as the Oriental, Asiatic, or Eastern Honey Buzzard. The name is derived from its diet, which consists mainly of the larvae of bees and wasps extracted from honey combs.

The male measures, 50 to 70 cm in length and weighs 750 to 1,300 grams. The female weighs 950 to 1,500 grams. The wingspan is 110 to 160 cm. The male buzzard is long-necked with a small blue-grey head with short head crest. The tail is long and darker with a white band. The back is brown and the underparts are paler. The female has brown head. It occasionally makes high-pitched whistling sound.

The species has several adaptations for its specialist diet. These include an elongated head for foraging on underground nests and a groove in the tongue for feeding on honey. A mass of short, dense feathers on the head and neck protect against stinging attacks by social wasps. Juveniles may have adopted Batesian mimicry to deter predators.

Pernis ptilorhynchus (del Hoyo and Collar 2014) was previously listed as P. ptilorhyncus. It is closely related to P. apivorus.

The six recognized subspecies are:

• P. p. orientalis (Taczanowski, 1891) - inhabiting South Siberia to NE China and Japan

• P. p. ruficollis (Lesson, 1830) - inhabiting India and Sri Lanka to Myanmar, Vietnam and SW China

• P. p. torquatus (Lesson, 1830) - inhabiting Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo

• P. p. ptilorhynchus (Temminck, 1821) - inhabiting Java

• P. p. philippensis (Mayr, 1939) - inhabiting Palawan group (SW Philippines) and

• P. p. palawanensis (Stresemann, 1940) - inhabiting Philippines (except Palawan group and Sulu Archipelago)

In flight, the Oriental Honey Buzzard is likely to be mistaken, at a distance, for the short-toed snake-eagle. However, it can be distinguished by its slimmer head and longer neck. It is usually seen soaring singly or in pairs, or perched on a tree top. It is quiet even while nesting, sometimes uttering a single high-pitched screaming whistle. In flight it has deep elastic beats and high upstrokes. It glides and soars on flat or slightly arched wings at right angles to the body. The long broad wings are well rounded at six-fingered tips. The tail is broad, of medium length with a rounded tip. The tail is shorter than the breadth of the wing bases. The wing span is 2.4 times total length in the Palearctic (Eurasian) subspecies, but 2.0–2.2 in the Indo-Malayan subspecies.

The similarity in plumage between juvenile oriental or crested honey buzzards and the Nisaetus hawk-eagles may have arisen as a partial protection against predation by larger raptors. The eagles have stronger bills and talons, and are likely to be less vulnerable than the Pernis species. Similar mimicry is shown by the juvenile of the European honey buzzard, which resembles the common buzzard. Although the northern goshawk is capable of killing both species, it is likely to be more cautious about attacking the better protected Buteo species. These are examples of Batesian mimicry, named for the English naturalist and explorer H.W. Bates who first reported such mimicry in the context of Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) in 1861.

The Oriental Honey Buzzard is a summer migrant to Siberia and Japan, wintering in tropical Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. It leaves Siberia in late August and returns in May. The summer sojourn in Japan is April–May to mid-September.  In the Indian Subcontinent it is more or less resident. Crested buzzards that migrate from breeding areas in Japan to wintering areas in Southeast Asia fly over the East China Sea. This 700 km (430 mi) nonstop flight over water is possible because during autumn, winds over the sea blow in the same direction as the birds' direction of flight (i.e. wind support).

The Oriental Honey Buzzard inhabit woodlands of various climatic types preferring broad-leaved forests, well-forested lowland and hilly areas that are broken by open glades. In South and Southeast Asia it is sometimes found in small groves near villages. It is found from sea level to 1,500 m (4,900 ft), occasionally up to 1,800 m (5,900 ft). During migrations it goes above 3,000 m (9,800 ft).

It feeds on the larvae of bees and wasps. These buzzards also feed on bees, wasps and cicadas. They have been observed eating bits of honeycomb and honey. The breeding season of these Oriental buzzard species starts from March in South India. In the northern ranges it is during the summer months. The availability of feed is also a factor for breeding. These buzzard species construct nests in the forks of trees. The mating display includes wing-clapping.

The global population of Oriental honey buzzard is estimated to number 100,000 to 1,000,000 individual birds. This species has an extremely large range and is not vulnerable. Degradation of habitats and felling trees are major threats to its survival.

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) has categorised and evaluated these buzzard species and has listed them as of "Least Concern" but the bird is inconspicuous and may be undercounted.

As climate change affects wind conditions worldwide, the wind support for migration over the 680 km migratory pathway over the East China Sea could be reduced. Japanese researchers have developed a mathematical model to estimate the effect of climate change on the favourable winds over this section. They predict a slight reduction in the migratory areas due to this wind change effect by the middle of the 21st century and a complete loss of the migratory pathway by late in the century. The study does not consider possible behavioural adaptations of migratory birds which could possibly compensate for the changing wind patterns.

On the positive side, the species appears to be adapting to the availability of anthropogenic habitats. It has colonized irrigated forest plantations in some areas of Pakistan. It has recently spread to the Middle East and regularly winters in small numbers in Arabia. These birds may be migrating from Siberia using a pathway over Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan that is west of the Himalayas.

On the island of Java, Indonesia, people living in or near forested areas suffer from attacks, sometimes fatal, by giant honey bees. The local people and honey collectors blame the honey buzzards for these attacks. This raptor attacks the nests of the giant honey bee. As it flies away with a piece of the honeycomb in its claws, it is pursued by angry bees. The local belief is that as its escape strategy the honey buzzard flies close to humans in the vicinity to transfer the attack of the angry bees to the humans. However, in a study of the hunting behaviour of honey buzzards conducted between 2003 and 2019, no evidence of this strategy was observed by the researchers. They surmised that a decline in the habitat due to human activity has increased the conflict between bees and humans.

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