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Five European Honey-buzzards from One Polish Population Used Four Migration Flyways

European honey-buzzard in flight during migration
Research · Ecology

Five adult male European honey-buzzards (Pernis apivorus) breeding in north-eastern Poland were tracked between 2018 and 2024 in a study published in 2026. Although their breeding sites were within only 60 km of one another, the birds used four distinct migration flyways: via Gibraltar, the Apennines, the Balkans and the Bosphorus.

At their widest separation, the routes were 3,750 km apart. The wintering areas, by contrast, were clustered much more closely, with only 575 km between them. The tracking therefore revealed pronounced individual differences in how birds from the same breeding population crossed Europe and Africa.

Route choice was not completely fixed within individuals either. Birds changed parts of their routes between years and adjusted movements around major barriers including mountain ranges, seas and deserts. The authors describe this as evidence of substantial flexibility and individuality in migration route choice.

Migration timing differed most clearly during the spring return journey, producing considerable variation in when the tracked males reached their breeding grounds. The study was based on five birds, but within that small sample the researchers found striking individuality in both route choice and year-to-year adjustments.

Sources and image credit

  1. Mirski, P., Komar, E., & Tumiel, T. (2026). Remarkable plasticity in route choice by migrating European Honey Buzzards from north-eastern Poland. Journal of Ornithology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-026-02370-zPrimary peer-reviewed research article, first published online 9 February 2026. Five adult male European honey-buzzards breeding within 60 km in north-eastern Poland used four distinct flyways via Gibraltar, the Apennines, the Balkans and the Bosphorus; routes were separated by up to 3,750 km while wintering areas were only 575 km apart.

Image: Hobbyfotowiki / Wikimedia Commons — wild European honey-buzzard (Pernis apivorus) in flight during migration at Fehmarn, Germany, photographed 19 August 2019. Representative migration photograph, not one of the five tracked Polish males; cropped to 16:9. · CC0 1.0 — https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ · Source

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