The common buzzard (Buteo buteo) is a medium-sized bird of prey with a large range. It is a member of the genus Buteo in the family Accipitridae. The species lives in most of Europe and extends its breeding range across much of the Palearctic as far as northwestern China (Tian Shan), far western Siberia and northwestern Mongolia.Ferguson-Lees, J., & Christie, D. A. (2001). Raptors of the world. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Over much of its range, it is a year-round resident. However, buzzards from the colder parts of the Northern Hemisphere as well as those that breed in the eastern part of their range typically migrate south for the northern winter, many journeying as far as South Africa.Bildstein, K. L., & Zalles, J. I. (2005). Old World versus New World long-distance migration in accipiters, buteos, and falcons. Birds of two worlds: the ecology and evolution of migration. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA: 154–167.
The common buzzard is an opportunistic predator that can take a wide variety of prey, but it feeds mostly on small mammals, especially rodents such as voles. It typically hunts from a perch.Cramp, S., & Brooks, D. J. (1992). Handbook of the birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The birds of the western Palearctic, vol. 2''. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Like most accipitrid birds of prey, it builds a nest, typically in trees in this species, and is a devoted parent to a relatively small brood of young. The common buzzard appears to be the most common diurnal raptor in Europe, as estimates of its total global population run well into the millions.BirdLife, F. V. B. (2005). Birds in Europe: population estimates, trends and conservation status. British Birds 98: 269–271.
Taxonomy The first formal description of the common buzzard was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Falco buteo. The genus Buteo was introduced by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1799 by tautonymy with the specific name of this species. Page numbering starts at one for each of the three sections. The word buteo is Latin for a buzzard. It should not be confused with the turkey vulture, which is sometimes called a buzzard in American English.
The Buteoninae subfamily originated from and is most diversified in the Americas, with occasional broader radiations that led to common buzzards and other Eurasian and African buzzards. The common buzzard is a member of the genus Buteo, a group of medium-sized raptors with robust bodies and broad wings. The Buteo species of Eurasia and Africa are usually commonly referred to as "buzzards" while those in the Americas are called hawks. Under current classification, the genus includes approximately 28 species, the second most diverse of all extant accipitrid genera behind only Accipiter. DNA testing shows that the common buzzard is fairly closely related to the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) of North America, which occupies a similar ecological niche to the buzzard in that continent. The two species may belong to the same species complex. Three buzzards in Africa are likely closely related to the common buzzard based on genetic materials, the mountain buzzard (Buteo oreophilus), forest buzzard (Buteo trizonatus), and the Madagascar buzzard (Buteo brachypterus), to the point where it has been questioned whether they are sufficiently distinct to qualify as full species. However, the distinctiveness of these African buzzards has generally been supported.Haring, E., Riesing, M. J., Pinsker, W., & Gamauf, A. (1999). Evolution of a pseudo‐control region in the mitochondrial genome of Palearctic buzzards (genus Buteo) . Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 37(4): 185–194.Siegfried, W. R. (1969). Affinities of the small African and Palaearctic buteos. Ostrich 40(S1): 41–46. Genetic studies have further indicated that the modern buzzards of Eurasia and Africa are a relatively young group, showing that they diverged at about 300,000 years ago.Clouet, M., & Wink, M. (2000). The buzzards of Cape Verde Buteo (buteo) bannermani and Socotra Buteo (buteo) spp.: first results of a genetic analysis based on nucleotide sequences of the cytochrome b gene. Alauda 68(1): 55–58. Nonetheless, fossils dating earlier than 5 million year old (the late Miocene period) showed Buteo species were present in Europe much earlier than that would imply, although it cannot be stated to a certainty that these would have been related to the extant buzzards.Boev, Z., & Kovachev, D. (1998). Buteo spassovi sp. N.–a late Mionece buzzard (Accipitridae, Aves) from SW Bulgaria. Geologica Balcanica 29(1–2): 125–129.
Subspecies and species splits
Some 16 subspecies have been described in the past and up to 11 are often considered valid, although currently, only six are accepted by the IOC World Bird List and seven by the 2025 Avilist. Common buzzard subspecies fall into two groups.
The western buteo group is mainly resident or short-distance migrants and includes: B. b. buteo (Linnaeus, 1758): Ranges in Europe from the Atlantic islands, the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula (including Madeira Island, whose population was once considered a separate subspecies, B. b. harterti) more or less continuously throughout Europe to Finland, Romania and Asia Minor.Brown, Leslie and Amadon, Dean (1986) Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World. The Wellfleet Press. . This highly individually variable subspecies is described below. This is a relatively large and bulky subspecies. In males, the wing chord ranges from and the tail from . In comparison, the larger female has a wing chord measuring and tail length of . In both sexes, the tarsus measures in length. As illustrated by average body mass, sizes in the nominate subspecies of common buzzard seem to confirm to Bergmann's rule, increasing to the north and decreasing closer to the Equator.CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses, 2nd Edition by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). CRC Press (2008), . In southern Norway, the mean weight of males was reportedly , while that of females was .Selas, V. (1997). Nest-site selection by four sympatric forest raptors in southern Norway. Journal of Raptor Research 31: 16–25. British buzzards were of intermediate size, 214 males averaging and 261 females averaging . Birds to the south in Spain were smaller, averaging in 22 males and in 30 females.Zuberogoitia, I., Martínez, J. A., Zabala, J., Martínez, J. E., Castillo, I., Azkona, A., & Hidalgo, S. (2005). Sexing, ageing and moult of Buzzards Buteo buteo in a southern European area. Ringing & Migration 22(3): 153–158. Cramp and Simmons (1980) listed the mean body mass overall of nominate buzzards in Europe overall as in males and in females.
B. b. rothschildi Swann, 1919: This proposed subspecies is native to the Azores islands. It is generally considered a valid subspecies.James, A. H. (1984). Geographic variation in the buzzard Buteo buteo (Linnaeus, 1758): mid-Atlantic and west Mediterranean islands (Aves: Accipitridae). Beaufortia 34(4): 101–116. This subspecies differs from a typical intermediate of the nominate in being a darker, colder brown both above and below, closer to the darker individuals of the nominate. It averages smaller than most nominate buzzards. The wing chord of males ranges from while that of females ranges from . B. b. insularum Floericke, 1903: This subspecies lives in the Canary Islands. Not all authorities consider this subspecies suitably distinct, but others advocate it be retained as a full subspecies. It is typically of richer brown above and more heavily streaked below compared to nominate birds. It is similar in size to B. b. rothschildi and averages slightly smaller than the nominate subspecies. Males have a reported wing chord of and females have a wing chord of . B. b. pojana (Savi, 1831), syn. B. b. arrigonii Picchi 1903: This subspecies inhabits the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. It is generally considered a valid subspecies. The upper-side of these buzzards is an intermediate brown with very heavy streaking below, often covering the belly whereas most nominate buzzards show a whitish area the middle of the belly. Like most other insular subspecies, this one is relatively small. Males possess a wing chord of while females have a wing chord of .
The eastern vulpinus group includes:
B. b. vulpinus (Gloger, 1833): The steppe buzzard breeds as far west as eastern Sweden, in the southern two-thirds of Finland, eastern Estonia, much of Belarus and Ukraine, eastward to the northern Caucacus, northern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, much of Russia to Altai and south-central Siberia, Tien Shan in China and western Mongolia. B. b. vulpinus is a long-distance migrant. It winters largely in much of eastern and southern Africa. Less frequently and often very discontinuously, steppe buzzards winter in the southern peninsulas of Europe, Arabia and southwestern India in addition to some parts of southeastern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In the open country favoured on the wintering grounds, steppe buzzards are often seen perched on roadside telephone poles. It at one time was considered a separate species due to differences in size, form, colouring and behaviour (especially in regards to migratory behaviour) but is genetically indistinct from nominate buzzards.Kruckenhauser, L., Haring, E., Pinsker, W., Riesing, M. J., Winkler, H., Wink, M., & Gamauf, A. (2004). Genetic vs. morphological differentiation of Old World buzzards (genus Buteo, Accipitridae). Zoologica Scripta 33(3): 197–211. Furthermore, the steppe buzzard engages in extensive interbreeding with the nominate subspecies, causing typical characteristics of the two subspecies to mix. The zone of integration runs from Scandinavia through the European continent to the Black Sea, including any part of the overlapping ranges in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, western Ukraine and eastern Romania. At times, the fertile hybrids of these two subspecies have been erroneously proposed as subspecies such as B. b. intermedius or B. b. zimmermannae. Intergrade buzzards are commonest where the grey-brown type of pale morphs of B. b. vulpinus are predominant. Steppe buzzards are usually distinctly smaller, with relatively longer wings and tail for their size, and thus often appear swifter and more agile in flight than nominate buzzards, whose wing beats can look slower and clumsier. Typically, their length is around , while wingspan of males average and females average . The wing chord is in males and in females. Tail length is in males and in females. Weights of birds from Russia can reportedly range from in males and in females.Dementiev, G. P., & Gladkov, N. A. (1951). Birds of the Soviet Union, vol. 1. Sovetskaya Nauka, Moscow. Weights of migrant birds appear to be lower than at other times of year for steppe buzzards. Two surveys of migrant buzzards during their huge spring movement in Eilat, Israel showed 420 birds averaged and 882 birds averaged .Gorney, E., & Yom‐Tov, Y. (1994). Fat, hydration condition, and moult of Steppe Buzzards Buteo buteo vulpinus on spring migration. Ibis 136(2): 185–192.Yosef, R., Tryjanowski, P., & Bildstein, K. L. (2002). Spring migration of adult and immature buzzards (Buteo buteo) through Elat, Israel: timing and body size. Journal of Raptor Research 36(2): 115–120. In comparison, weights of wintering steppe buzzards was higher, averaging in 35 birds in the former Transvaal (South Africa) and in 160 birds in the Cape Province. Weights of birds from Zambia were similar.Benson, C. W., & Irwin, M. P. S. (1967). A contribution to the ornithology of Zambia (No. 1). published.Broekhuysen, G. J., & Siegfried, W. R. (1969). Age and moult in the Steppe Buzzard in southern Africa. Ostrich 40(S1): 223–237.