Introduction

Initial research on tracking the migrations of Scottish honey buzzards using satellite transmitters, involved two young in 2001 and one young in 2002, as well as the adult male of all three chicks in 2002. These birds were from a nest on Forestry Commission land near Inverness and provided very important information about the migration anomalies of young honey buzzards from Scotland. The male wintered successfully in Gabon, and his migration was accurately monitored to the wintering quarters, while one chick was tracked to Morocco before the battery ran out. The other two perished in the Atlantic Ocean after making southerly migrations with a westerly bias. Two young from southern England were also successfully tracked to West Africa in 2003. Unfortunately no suitable nests were located in the following years but in 2006 we are continued our research on these fascinating birds and two young were tracked to Africa. In 2007, it was a very wet summer and wasps were scarce - as were sightings of honey buzzards. In late August, I found one nest with a just fledged single chick.

In 2008, I located a nest in Moray in July and ringed two young on the 26th; the larger female chick was fitted with a Solar PTT100 satellite radio, to follow its migration click migration maps 2008. In summer, 2009, we ringed and satellite tagged the two chicks from this nest, one wintered in Nigeria and one in Cameroon - both transmitters were of the old non-GPS type but data was received for over a year for Rana and a year and half for Vespa. Unfortunately in summer 2010 we located no successful nests, but in 2011 I found the new nest a km away for probably the same pair as bred in 2008 and 2009. The 2011 summer was very poor with lots of rain and winds, wasps were scarce. I found the occupied nest on 13th August and the surviving chick was tegged on 19th August.

A Partnership Project between Forestry Commission, The Highland Foundation for Wildlife & The Highland Raptor Study Group