Hawks in flock — a sight to set birders’ hearts racing

Great excitement on the phone last Sunday morning, communicated via Skype from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by two friends of ours, British long-term residents there.

Flushed with excitement, they had just returned from the spectacle of a sky full of hawks, in flocks, flying north over the Straits of Malacca in annual migration from Sumatra to Malaysia, thence to Siberia to breed.

Raptors are, almost always, viewed as solitary birds, or are seen in pairs. Flocks of raptors, huge birds against the clear blue sky, were a sight to set their birders’ hearts racing. Oriental honey buzzards, (Pernis ptilorhyncus), birds with a wingspan almost as wide as my arms outspread constituted 90% of the migrants.