Journal of Proceedings.
lxxiii
" Notes on the Occurrence of the Honey Buzzard (P. apivorus) at
Great Chesterford, and at Saffron Walden, Essex ; and of a
Common Buzzard (Buteo vulgaris) in Shortgrove Park, Saffron
Walden.
"It appears that a considerable number of the larger birds of prey
have been killed this autumn during their southward migration. No less
than three Buzzards (two Honey Buzzards and one Common Buzzard)
have been shot within a short distance of this town, and, through the
kindness of our member Mr. J. Travis, to whom two of them were sent
for preservation, I am enabled to give the following short account of
them :—The first Honey Buzzard was shot, as briefly recorded in the
' Field,' in the Rectory Garden at Great Chesterford, on September 2(3th
last, by Mr. G. Ernest, a son-in-law (?) of the Rev. E. Seymour Randolph,
the clergyman there. According to his account the bird rose from near
a large wasps' nest, but that it had been feeding on either the wasps or
their grubs I very much doubt, as Mr. Travis and I, on examining the
contents of its stomach, found nothing of the kind. The substance we
met with was not in a very recognisable condition, but it appeared to
consist principally of the remains of grasshoppers, with small beetles,
and probably some other insects intermixed. The bird is, I think, a
young male ; the body was coated thickly with fat; the sides were brown,
and the legs and cere bright yellow. The plumage is of an almost uniform
reddish brown colour, scarcely varied except by some darker bars across
the tail, and a whitish tip to each of the feathers in it. There is also a
greyish tinge on the feathers in front of the eye. This bird is certainly
the most un-hawk-like of all our Falconidae. The head and beak are
small; the latter being very neatly formed and sharp, and nearly black
in colour. The wings are small even for a Buzzard, and the claws weak
and very slightly hooked. The sternum does not exhibit any noticeable
peculiarity when compared with that of other Buzzards, though the keel
is rather deeper. Its structure generally is well adapted to its necessities
and mode of life.
" Of the other Honey Buzzard I can give but little information. It.
was shot about the same time as the one above referred to, by one of Lord
Braybrooke's keepers, near the aviary at Audley End. As it is now being
stuffed in London for His Lordship's collection I do not know its age or
sex, but it is stated to have been rising from a wasps' nest when shot at
and killed.
" The Common Buzzard was shot by one of the keepers in Short Grove
Park, close to Saffron Walden, about the 5th or 6th of October; it is a
handsomely plumaged male bird, which Mr. Travis has mounted. In its
stomach I found the remains of a rat, and there was more of the same
substance in the crop, from which Mr. Travis had previously taken a
couple of Field-mice.
" While upon the subject of Hawks, it will, I think, be as well to give a
few particulars which Mr. Travis has been good enough to furnish me
with concerning several which have been shot in this neighbourhood in
years gone by, and which have never been recorded, or only very inade-
quately.
" The first of these is a Honey Buzzard which was seen several times
about a certain spot near Littlebury Green, one September about five
years ago, and was at last shot by Mr. Newman, of Strethall Hall, bailiff
to Mr. Edmund Emson, in whose possession it now is. When shot it was
as usual engaged upon a wasps' nest. It seems to have been an old male
bird, with bright yellow irides, and its cheeks ashy coloured, but otherwise
much the same in plumage as the one already described.
k