Taiwan releases first documentary featuring honey buzzard ecology

The high definition documentary gives an unprecedented glimpse at how the bird invades a big hornet hive in groups to prey on pupa, said officials of the Forestry Bureau under the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture (COA).

The film also provides plenty of visual evidence of the honey buzzard's migratory paths, the environment it encounters along the path, and the hazards that threaten the bird's survival, the officials said.

It is Taiwan's first documentary featuring the bird that was little known to local bird observers until recently after the government began constructing a databank of raptors in Taiwan in 2002, COA official Chia Jung-sheng said.

As they undertook the project, researchers discovered that some oriental honey buzzards that stopped on the island to winter have actually settled here.

“It was an exciting discovery that encouraged us to engage in further research,” Chia said.

Despite being a member of the family of diurnal raptors that are at the top level of the ecological food chain, the honey buzzards prey on bee pupa and baby bees.

Thanks to the habitual behavior, the bird plays an important role in Taiwan's biodiversity and ecological balance. It has been difficult, however, to observe the bee-eater in its natural habitat pursuing its prey because it lives in dense forests.

Facing this challenge, the Forestry Bureau began studying the habitat and food resources of honey buzzards in central Taiwan in 2005, before launching a three-year program in 2008 aimed at making the documentary.

According to Luica Liu Severinghaus, a research fellow at the Academia Sinica Biodiversity Research Center, the Oriental Honey Buzzards observed in Taiwan weigh around 1 kilogram and have a wing span of 1.35 meters.

The bird, which normally breeds in high-altitude regions in Europe and Asia, has been observed every year flying through southern Taiwan toward the south for wintering, the expert in avian ecology said.

They have observed, however, that the birds have a presence on the island every month of a year, suggesting that some of them stay here for a longer period, he said.

To promote international cooperation in the research of migratory birds, the Forestry Bureau and Academic Sinica jointly organized the two-day International Conference on the Migration and Biology of Honey Buzzards in Taipei, attracting 19 scholars and experts from Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Malaysia and Taiwan who would issue a total of 18 studies on the bird.

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