After a morning circuit of Hastings Country Park, dominated by Meadow Pipit and House Martin vismig, I was walking back to the car park from the Quarry and clocked a group of raptors circling over Lower Coastguard Lane. Through bins they all looked to be Common Buzzard but backlighting made viewing difficult. Fortunately they started to drift towards me and out over Warren Glen, and I was able to get a better look at their undersides. As they flew overhead one bird stood out, with coarse barring across the secondaries and primaries, reminding me of the many images I’d seen of Honey Buzzard.

Not totally convinced that this couldn’t be some funky Common Buzzard plumage I needed to study the photos. After some careful examination, and a bit of positive feedback from the local WhatsApp group, I was happy I’d seen an immature Honey Buzzard (HB). I was surprised by how similar to Common Buzzard (CB) it appeared in the field and I can believe research suggesting that juvenile HB has evolved to mimic CB to avoid predation by Goshawk. According to a Dutch Birding paper on identification and ageing of HB, the flight silhouette of juvenile HB is quite different to the adult and quite similar to CB due to the shorter flight feathers.

However, there are still features which can reliably separate them (more detail in the Dutch Birding paper), in this case supported by comparison with photos of the Common Buzzard I had passing over at the same time:

• juvenile HB shares the relatively small head and long neck of the adult, giving an odd cuckoo-like impression;
• despite having shorter flight feathers than the adults, the wings are still proportionally longer and thinner than CB;
• the dark carpal markings are roughly oval shaped in HB;
• barring on the tail is irregular and coarse instead of the fine and regular barring of CB;
• barring on the wing feathers is bold and coarse in comparison to the finer barring of CB, and extends into the outer primaries.
• for anything other than pale morph birds, the throat, breast and rump of HB are fairly dark and uniform in comparison to the more contrastingly marked CB.

As already noted, this is an immature bird, which is indicated by the dark secondaries and other patterning details. The worn looking tail feathers initially lead me down the 2CY route, as I’d expected a 1CY juvenile to have fresh tail feathers. However, this age class is very rare in Europe as juveniles migrate to their African wintering grounds in their first year and don’t return until they reach adulthood in spring of their 3CY. Jamie Partridge tells me that worn tail feathers are not exceptional for 1CY juvenile HB and may be a consequence of damage during its time in the nest or while digging out hives on the ground.

A long hoped for bird at Hastings Country Park and hopefully the first of many more in years to come. Recent survey work in the Sussex recording area has shown that the species is breeding in greater numbers than was originally thought, with 60 adults recorded and an estimate of 25 breeding pairs. Whether this bird is local or from further afield I don’t know but hopefully the species continues to find breeding success in the UK when so many other species aren’t.