Control your waspish tongue

Does Nature offer a more courageous sight than the usually shy honey buzzard devouring a hornets' nest as the occupants whine about it with murderous intent?

- Mark Cocker

IT was the late African naturalist Leslie Brown who pointed out how badly we named the honey buzzard (Pernis apivorus). The species is not remotely related to the other buzzards, although itis, at least, buzzard-sized, with a bigger wingspan, a longer, barred tail and a slender head and neck that give it a curious resemblance to acuckoo. Nor does honey form any part of the bird's diet, although social insects (wasps, hornets, bumblebees and the like) are central to its ecology and determine almost everything about its physiology and way of life. Honey buzzards arrive in Britain, for example, in late May—precisely when their insect prey becomes most abundant. The connections further ensure that the species is scarce in this country: our summers are too unreliable and too wet for either wasps or a wasp-eating raptor.

‘Not one could have escaped being stung—yet the raptor persists'