Common Buzzard - Buteo buteo

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Buteo buteo

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Classification
Class: Aves
Order: Accipritiformes
Family: Accipitritae
Subfamily: Buteoninae
Genus: Buteo
Species: Buteo buteo

Description
The Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) is a medium sized bird of prey from Eurasia. Fully grown it is about 55cm long and has a wingspan between 120 and 130cm. Like other Accipitritae B.buteo has an aquiline peak and big claws, which show its specialization on preying. The body is rather blunt, its wing shape is similiar to the wings of eagles. The feathers are normally colored in brown, but there is in fact a big varity from dark brown to a nearly white plumage.

Habitat
Buteo buteo is widespread in swaths of Eurasia. You can find it on Eastern Atlantic islands as far as in Tibetian forests, where they life in heights of about 4500m. In some regions the buzzard is a migratory bird and flies every year to the South, especially Africa. However, in other regions like Middle Europe they stay during winter.
The Common Buzzard prefers open meadows and fields, which alternate with forests.


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All-season
Summer
Winter

Behaviour
The Common Buzzard is diurnal and preys primarly small mammals like rudents or rabbits, but also feeds of invertebrates like insects or worms. Some specimen are even attacking snakes like the poisenous Common European Adder (Vipera berus).
In Middle European countries like Germany the Common Buzzard (where it is one of the most frequent birds of prey) is easily recognizable by sitting on a single heightened place like a pale or a utility pole, where it's on the lookout for prey animals. In other times they are rotary gliding above the ground and do their remarkable call, which sounds a bit like the "meow" of a cat.
As a location for its nest B.buteo generaly chooses forest trees, where the parents build their nest near the trunk. The female lays two to six eggs, which are breeded for a month. For the succesive six to eight weeks the fledglings are supplied by the parents.

Collection of Buteo buteo calls: Link  ("Mäusebussard" means "Common Buzzard")


Buteo buteo feeds on overran European Hare





Flying Buteo buteo

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Sources
1) Gunter Steinbach (publisher), "Die Tiere unserer Heimat - Wegweiser durch die Natur", second edition, ADAC Verlag, Munich 2001
2) Dr. rer. nat. Gottfried Mauersberger, "Urania Tierreich - Vögel", Urania-Verlag, 1995
3) Dr. Theodor Haltenorth, Dr. Frieder Sauer, "Tiere unserer Heimat - Augespürt von den besten Tierfotografen", Tomus Verlag, Munich 1980

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Common Buzzard chick




Common Buzzard catches a rat and fights with an eagle

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As a location for its nest B.buteo generaly chooses forest trees, where the parents build their nest near the trunk. The female lays two to six eggs, which are breeded for a month. For the succesive six to eight weeks the fledglings are supplied by the parents.

During breeding season Common Buzzards act very territorial. The mother usually keeps at the nest while the father is preying for the female and the chicks. If the chicks are still small, the parents hack bigger prey like rudients. In older but still not-fledged chicks disappears the jealousy about food and instead of that they start to foster their plumage and to practise flying.
Sometimes B.buteo families do practice flights together with other big birds like ravens.^[1]

Phylogeny and Evolution
The oldest known remains of Accipitridae come from the early Oligocene of France and are similiar to Buteo, but there has to be some greater revision.
In 2001 Haring et al. determinded the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of B.buteo, showing it is the largest known bird sequence so far. Afterwards they started a phylogenitic comparison by using the complete sequences of Gallus gallus f. dom.(Chicken), Struthio camelus(Ostrich), Rhea americana (Rhea), Vidua chalybeata (Village Indigobird), Aythya americana (Redhead), Falco peregrinus (Peregrine Falcon), Smithornis sharpei (Grey-headed Broadbill), Corvus frugilegus (Rook), Ciconia ciconia (White Stork) and finally Alligator mississipiensis as an outgroup. Because of genetic similarities they concentrated especially on the relationship between Buteo, Falco and Ciconia.
Buteo (respectivly Accipitridae) is therefore more related to Falco (which belongs to Falconidae) than to Ciconia (Ciconiidae).
The ancestors of Accipitridae and Falconidae splitted very early, probably during Late Cretaceous.^[2]


Dendogram of Haring et al.^[2]

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Sources:
1) mäusebussard.info/ (German)
2) mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/10/1892.full.pdf+html

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Diet variation of common buzzards in Finland supports the alternative prey hypothesis

The regional synchrony of short-term population fluctuations of small rodents and small game has usually been explained by varying impacts of generalist predators subsisting on both voles and small game (the “alternative prey hypothesis” APH). APH says that densities of predators increase as a response to increasing vole densities and then these predators shift their diet from the main prey to the alternative prey when the main prey decline and vice versa. We studied the diet composition of breeding common buzzards Buteo buteo during 1985-92 in western Finland. Microtus voles were the main prey and water voles, shrews, forest grouse, hares and small birds the most important alternative prey. Our data from the between-year variation in the diet composition of buzzards fulfilled the main predictions of APH. The yearly proportion of main prey (Microtus voles) in the diet was higher in years of high than low vole abundance. The proportion of grouse in the diet of buzzards was negatively related to the abundance of Microtus voles in the field and was nearly independent of grouse abundance in the field. In addition, buzzards mainly took grouse chicks and young hares which is consistent with the prediction of APH. Therefore, we conclude that buzzards are able to shift their diet in the way predicted by the APH and that buzzards, together with other generalist predators, may reduce the breeding success of small game in the decline phase of the vole cycle, and thus substantially contribute to the existence of short-term population cycles of small game.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2001.tb00199.x/abstract