Jdifnial of ProceediiKifi. Ixxiii 



"Notes ox thk Occuiuiknck of thk Honey Bu/zaud [P. apivoras) at 

 Great Chestekford, and at Saffron Walden, Essex; and of a 

 Common Buzzard {Biiteo vulgaris) in Shortorove 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, iJuough 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 Kectory Garden at Great Chesterford, on September 26th 

 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. Tra\ds 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 ap})eared 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 Falconida3. 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 

 stuli'ed 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 liilled. 



" 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 ine 

 with concerning several which have been shot in this neighbourhood in 

 years gone by, and which have ne\ev 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 tive 

 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 i)lumage as the one already described. 



h 



