The male European Honey Buzzard has a blue-grey head, while the female's head is brown.
The European Honey Buzzard is a summer migrant to most of Europe and western Asia, wintering in tropical Africa.
It can be distinguished from the similar Eurasian Buzzard by its larger size, longer, broader and rounder tail, longer neck, rather small head, often two tail bands + one at the very end.
In addition, the European Honey Buzzard has no pale band along its median wing coverts looking continuous with the pale breast band.

But perhaps the key feature I would look for first in a candidate European Honey Buzzard, and that can be seen at some distance, is whether the wings are held flat when soaring, and not in an obvious shallow ‘V’ of the Common Buzzard.
This feature is almost diagnostic: any buzzard-sized bird in an established soaring flight with flat wings is almost certainly a European Honey Buzzard.

Falsterbo, Sweden, 20 September 2005