Southern Carmine Bee-eater

The Southern Carmine Bee-eater is a large, vividly colored bee-eater famous for its massive nesting colonies on sandy river cliffs in southern Africa.

Appearance

• Rich carmine-pink plumage covering most of the body, including the throat
• Turquoise-blue crown patch
• Greenish-blue undertail coverts and rump
• Black mask through the eye
• Long, thin central tail streamers extending beyond the rest of the tail

Sexes look alike; juveniles are duller pink with shorter tail streamers.

Key field marks

• Carmine-pink throat that matches the body color (not blue)
• Turquoise-blue crown, contrasting with the pink body
• Long central tail streamers and black eye mask

Similar species

• The (Northern) Carmine Bee-eater is nearly identical but has a turquoise-blue throat rather than a pink one, with blue extending from the crown down through the throat.
• White-fronted Bee-eater is green-bodied with a white forehead, easily distinguished by its very different color scheme.
• Geography helps too: this species breeds in south-central and southern Africa, while the Northern Carmine breeds in the Sahel and northeastern Africa.

Range

Breeds in south-central Africa, including Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, and northeastern South Africa, migrating north into Central and East Africa (including the Congo Basin) during the non-breeding season.

Habitat

Open savanna and riverine country, requiring tall, vertical sandy riverbanks for nesting colonies; also forages over grassland and floodplains.

Movements

A long-distance intra-African migrant, arriving at southern African breeding rivers in the austral spring and moving north to equatorial Africa after breeding.

Behavior

Extremely gregarious, breeding in some of the largest bird colonies in Africa, with tens of thousands of burrows sometimes riddling a single riverbank; also known for perching on the backs of large animals, boats, or vehicles to sally after flushed insects.

Voice

A rolling, guttural chattering call similar to other carmine bee-eaters, frequently heard as flocks wheel over the colony.

Feeding

Hawks bees, wasps, dragonflies, and grasshoppers in fast aerial sallies, often foraging in large, loose flocks over open ground and water.

Nesting

Digs tunnel nests up to 1–2 m long into vertical sandy cliffs along rivers; colonies are dense and highly synchronized, timed to coincide with low river levels that expose nesting banks.