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Is the water-crossing tendency of adult
European Honey Buzzards influenced by a timeminimization strategy during spring...
Article · December 2015
DOI: 10.4081/rio.2015.131

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Nicolantonio AgostiniMichele Panuccio

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Rivista Italiana di Ornitologia - Research in Ornithology, 85 (1): 67-72, 2015					DOI: 10.4081/rio.2015.131

Short communications
Is the water-crossing tendency of adult European Honey Buzzardsinfluenced by a time minimization strategy during spring migration?
Nicolantonio Agostini1* & Michele Panuccio1
The European Honey Buzzard, Pernis apivorus, isa completely migrant species wintering in central West
Africa and breeding in the Palearctic region (FergusonLees & Christie, 2001). Compared with other raptors, it
has an intermediate morphology between smaller species,
such as falcons and harriers largely using powered flight,
and heavier soaring raptors, such as buzzards, eagles andvultures (Kerlinger, 1989; Pennycuick, 2008; Panuccio etal., 2013b). European Honey Buzzards mostly use soaring and gliding flight over land during migration, concentrating at bottlenecks such as the Strait of Gibraltarand Bosphorus like broad winged raptors (Zalles & Bildstein, 2000). However, counts at several European bottlenecks suggest different spatial migration patterns of thisspecies in autumn and spring. In particular, at the Straitof Gibraltar up to 17042 individuals were counted per season during spring 2008 and 2009 from six watch points
used at the same time. On the other hand in autumn 2008
more than 70000 European Honey Buzzards (about fourtimes the number recorded during spring) were counted
from three watch points, 63192 from a single point, peaking in the third ten-days of August (De La Cruz et al.,2011; Programa Migres, 2009). Conversely, in the Central
Mediterranean region the migratory flow of this species
is less conspicuous during autumn movements, althoughoccurring on a narrower front such as at the Strait of Gibraltar in the same season. Each spring at least 2500030000 individuals reach Europe crossing the Mediterranean between Tunisia and western Sicily. On the otherhand, the autumn migration of adult European Honey
Buzzards through the Central Mediterranean area involves on average 15000 individuals each season (Agostini& Panuccio, 2005; Morabito et al., 2013; Agostini et al.,unp. data). These differences in counts at these two bottle1
MEDRAPTORS - Mediterranean Raptor Migration Network,Via Mario Fioretti 18, 00152 Roma, Italia.
E-mail: panucciomichele@gmail.com*Corresponding author: nicolantonioagostini@gmail.com© 2015 Nicolantonio Agostini & Michele Panuccio
Received: June 18, 2014
Accepted for publication: November 11, 2014

necks clearly show a stronger tendency of adult European
Honey Buzzards to undertake longer sea crossings during
northbound rather than during southbound movements.
During their first (southward) migration, juvenile
European Honey Buzzards generally migrate later thanadults (Agostini et al,. 1999), and thus cannot learn theshorter crossings of the Mediterranean (via the Strait ofGibraltar and the Bosphorus) by following experienced
individuals. As a result, they mostly migrate on a broad
front over water, like falcons and harriers (Meyer et al.,
2000; Panuccio & Agostini, 2010; Panuccio et al., 2013b),
along an innate NE-SW axis (Agostini & Logozzo, 1995;
Agostini et al., 2002; Agostini, 2004; Agostini et al.,
2004; Schmid, 2000; Hake et al., 2003). On the base ofthis age-dependent migration strategy, some authors havesuggested that long water crossings through the Mediterranean are performed by less experienced individuals
during both spring and autumn (Schmid, 2000; Hake etal., 2003). This hypothesis would implies that birds will
eventually learn the more favorable, though longer, routes
via Gibraltar and Bosphorus. However, during visual observations in spring at the Strait of Messina (between the‘toe’ of southern continental Italy and Sicily, Fig. 1), only
a minority of birds with immature characteristics wasreported (note that most juveniles remain in ����������Africa until their second spring, Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001)
and,������������������������������������������������������
as expected, younger birds migrated later in the season, mostly during the last ten days of May (Panuccio &Agostini, 2006).
In spring, after reaching Sicily from Tunisia, northbound European Honey Buzzards make further decisions,with alternative flyways over water en route to mainlandItaly and the Balkans; they are not all funneled towards theStrait of Messina, the shortest sea crossing between Sicilyand Italy, but thousands of individuals fly across the Tyrrhenian Sea (Panuccio et al., 2004; Agostini et al., 2005;
2007; Fig. 2). To explain these results, Agostini & Panuccio (2005) suggested that, during spring migration, adult
European Honey Buzzards tend to cross the Mediterranean
on a broader front using more direct paths between wintering and breeding range since spring birds may be morestrongly motivated to reach their destination as quickly as
possible as a result of a time minimization strategy (Nilssonet al., 2013)���������������������������������������������
. Also in the eastern Mediterranean, observations on the migration of this species seem to confirm a68

SHORT COMMUNICATIONS

Fig. 1 - The Mediterranean Sea (SM = Strait of Messina; AN = Antikythira).

Fig. 2 - An adult male European Honey Buzzard during the crossing of the Tyrrhenian Sea along the Central Mediterranean flyway.
May 2011. (Photo by Michele Panuccio).

stronger tendency to cross larger stretches of sea in springrather than in autumn. In particular hundreds of individuals concentrate each autumn over the island of Antikythiraen route to Crete and Africa, while during spring European
Honey Buzzards are expected to bypass the island probably
choosing a more direct route between Libya and Greece(Agostini et al., 2012; Panuccio et al., 2013a; Fig. 1).
In recent studies, some authors (Meyburg et al., 2010;2013; Vansteelant et al., 2014) plotted movements ofEuropean Honey Buzzards fitted with GPS loggers andsatellite transmitters. One bird, an adult male breeding in
northern Germany and wintering in Nigeria, was trackedfor three consecutive spring migrations in 2004-06. In
2004 it crossed the Mediterranean at the Strait of Gibraltar, but in 2005 and 2006 it made longer sea crossings fromAlgeria to northern Spain via Balearic Islands (Meyburget al., 2010; Fig. 1). Another bird showed loop migration
at a larger scale, undertaking the crossing of the central

Rivista Italiana di Ornitologia - Research in Ornothology, 85 (1): 67-72

Mediterranean during spring movements (Meyburg et al.,2013). In addition, Vansteelant et al. (2014) showed thatEuropean Honey Buzzards migrate faster during springrather than autumn. These results do not match the hypothesis of Schmid (2000) and Hake et al. (2003) but suggest that experienced birds can choose more direct flyways between wintering and breeding areas during spring
movements, undertaking longer sea crossings probably asa result of a time minimization strategy. In this scenario,
the discovery of more direct paths between breeding andwintering areas made by juvenile birds during their firstmigration (Hake et al., 2003) may have adaptive value(Agostini & Panuccio, 2005).
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