Crested Buzzard: Crazy bird destroys hives, eating bees, wasps and hornets. And all without harm to health! How does she do this? (10 photos)

How spicy do you prefer your food? Red doshik and spicy wings? Well, well, newcomers! The crested honey buzzard is a real gourmet! These guys even surpassed my Korean grandfather, who eats adjika like jam. The favorite food of these birds is wasps, bees, bumblebees and hornets. And not in the form of increasingly popular dried snacks, but just like that, alive!





Here one harmless bee can cause a fuss, but honey bees don’t just catch insects one by one - they ruin entire hives. Birds are not at all afraid of a huge swarm that desperately defends their home from attack, or hundreds of sharp poisonous stings. But how do birds manage to dine on dangerous insects without any harm to themselves? And why such sacrifices, is there really no more accessible prey?



A typical boring day at work.

To be fair, it is worth noting that honey beetles are also capable of hunting other prey, such as small vertebrates - birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. But given the opportunity to choose, birds prefer to get nutritious honey and plump larvae, because these are pure carbohydrates and protein! Not a single mouse will provide so much energy and calories!





To achieve this, honey beetles have acquired some cool bells and whistles. The first is natural armor: the feathers on the heads and necks of birds have changed so that the stings of insects simply do not reach the skin. The feather barbs - thin fibers that grow from the shaft - began to be attached closer to each other, and their structure became denser. The sting just gets stuck in them! At the same time, the size of the feathers decreased by 50-70% compared to similar feathers on close relatives of the honey buzzard. The result is natural chain mail!



The second is the head. The birds' skull has become longer, and the beak has transformed from a formidable weapon for dismembering prey into neat tweezers, which are convenient for fishing out larvae from honeycombs. The nostrils of the wasp are narrowed into small slits so that they do not become clogged with wax or earth during the hunt. There is a special groove on the tongue of the bird for convenient absorption of honey, so that it does not flow down the whiskers.



After such an upgrade, honey beetles from a distance can be confused with overgrown pigeons - their physique has become too graceful. But close to the hawk it is easy to distinguish from the sizar - the bird gains up to 1.5 kilograms of weight, and its wingspan can reach 160 centimeters.



The third adaptation is the structure of the paws. The naked legs of birds are covered with thick scales. The middle finger on each paw is somewhat elongated in relation to the others - predators use it to dig up ground wasps.



He doesn't have time to get his nails done. A hard worker digs in the ground and gets food!

The fourth device, which scientists are still puzzling over, is the thread-like substance that covers all the feathers of honey beetles. Its chemical structure has been little studied. What is known is that it acts as a repellent on stinging insects. That is, this substance repels insects.



In winter, you can meet honey beetles in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and in summer - in Siberia and Japan, where they fly to procreate. Birds choose forests and vast open areas to live. Buzzards are also not shy about stopping by to see people - they are not shy birds. They are not liked in Indonesia for this character trait.



If you spent the whole article wondering where the crested honey beetle has its crest, then here is the answer. It only rises when the bird is excited.

The fact is that Indonesia is home to a sedentary population of honey buzzards. Birds often make nests on the borders of villages and cities. And they also feed the babies wasps. Both larvae and honey! Buzzards carefully carry food to the children for a whole year, until they themselves learn the art of bee-eating. So, having ravaged another hive, the honey beetle leads a trail of angry insects. But, flying over a human home, bees and wasps quickly find a scapegoat in the person of a person!



Previously, it was believed that predators deliberately fly near people in order to “throw the chase off their tail.” But studies conducted between 2003 and 2019 did not confirm this theory - the birds are not up to anything bad. Bees attack themselves: their habitat is shrinking, and encounters with people are becoming more frequent. So the only thing the wasps are to blame for is their own coolness!