Salted Honey Buzzards, anyone?

At the moment, in anticipation of the autumn raptor migration, I am reading an excellent book called "Wings over Falsterbo" by Lennart Karlsson. As the title suggests, the book is about migration at Falsterbo over the years and is a great read (a must for anyone who has been or is planning a trip). The extract below captured my imagination:

"In Linnaeus's day and for many years afterwards, birds were a source of food for the peninsula's inhabitants and offered a welcome variation on the local diet. This is confirmed by a passage in Irish author Patrick O'Brien's 1981 novel The Surgeon's Mate, set on an English sea vessel during the Napoleonic era. Visiting Gothenburg, British Royal Navy officer, Stephen Maturin, receives a gift from the harbour master - smoked reindeer tongues and a barrel of salted Honey Buzzards. The harbour master assures Stephen that they actaully are Honey Buzzards and not Common or Rough-legged Buzzards:

"Did you shoot them sir?" Stephen asked.
"Oh no", said the Commandant, quite shocked. "You must never shoot a Honey Buzzard: it ruins the flavour. No, we strangle them."
"Do they not resent this?"
"I think not", said the Commandant. "It happens at night. I have a small house at Falsterbo, a peninsula at the far end of the Sound with a few trees upon it; here the birds come in the autumn, myriads of birds flying south, and great numbers roost in the wood, so many you may scarcely see the trees. We choose the best, pluck them down, and so strangle them. It has been done for ever; all the best salted Buzzards come from Falsterbo".

O'Brien is known for his rigorous fact checking and we can therefore take it as read that there was an intensive Buzzard migration at Falsterbo in the early 19th century."

Better than a battery chicken from Tescos...