Birds
Southern Carmine Bee-eater
Merops nubicoides · also called southern carmine bee-eater, carmine bee-eater
The southern carmine bee-eater is one of Africa’s most vivid birds, a slim, streamer-tailed hunter in deep crimson and blue-green. It catches bees and locusts on the wing, nests by the thousand in tunnels dug into riverbanks, and has a habit of hitching rides on the backs of bustards, ostriches, and antelopes to flush its next meal.
Overview
Southern carmine bee-eaters live across southern and south-central Africa, moving seasonally to track rains and food. They are about 24–27 cm long plus tail streamers, carmine-red with a greenish-blue crown and belly, a black mask, and a long curved bill. They eat flying insects, especially bees and wasps, de-stinging them against a perch before swallowing.
Colony nesting
Pairs breed in dense colonies of hundreds or thousands of nests, digging tunnels one to two metres deep into vertical riverbanks and low cliffs. The big dry-season colonies on rivers like the Zambezi and Luangwa are a wildlife spectacle.
Riding along
Carmine bee-eaters often perch on the backs of kori bustards, ostriches, and antelopes, using them as moving beaters — as the host walks through grass it flushes insects, which the bird darts out to catch. They also gather at grass fires and around grazing herds for the same reason.
Status
The southern carmine bee-eater is Least Concern, with a large and generally stable population, though individual colonies are vulnerable to bank collapse, flooding, and disturbance.
Southern Carmine Bee-eater: common questions
Do carmine bee-eaters really ride on other animals?
Yes, and it is one of the species' best-known habits. A carmine bee-eater will land on the back of a large walking animal, such as a kori bustard, an ostrich, a bustard, a large antelope, or in the past a person on horseback or a slow vehicle, and ride along using it as a mobile hunting perch. As the animal moves through grass it disturbs grasshoppers, beetles, and other insects into the air, and the bee-eater launches from its back to catch them, then returns. The host animal generally tolerates this. It is a neat example of one animal exploiting the everyday activity of another to make its own foraging easier.
How do bee-eaters eat bees without being stung?
Carefully and with a specific technique. A bee-eater catches a bee or wasp in flight, then returns to a perch and holds the insect near the tip of its bill. It beats the insect hard against the branch to stun it and to break off or damage the sting, then it rubs and squeezes the rear of the abdomen along the perch to express the venom and detach the sting entirely before swallowing. Young bee-eaters have to learn this, and adults are rarely stung. The birds can safely eat large numbers of stinging insects that most other birds avoid.
Why do carmine bee-eaters nest in such huge colonies?
Colony nesting in earth banks gives several advantages. Suitable vertical banks of the right soil are patchy, so where one exists many pairs concentrate there. A large colony provides safety in numbers, with many eyes to spot predators such as snakes, monitor lizards, and birds of prey, and mobbing behaviour to drive them off. The tunnels themselves protect eggs and chicks from weather and most predators. The main risks are that a whole section of bank can collapse or be flooded, that ground predators can dig in, and that a large, noisy, conspicuous colony attracts specialised nest raiders, so colonies represent a trade-off rather than pure safety.
Where can you see southern carmine bee-eaters?
They are a highlight of the dry-season months along the major rivers of south-central Africa, with famous breeding colonies on the banks of rivers such as the Zambezi, the Luangwa, and the Okavango, where thousands of birds wheel over the water and stream in and out of the tunnels. Outside the breeding season the birds disperse widely across savanna and floodplain and are often seen hawking insects over grassland, following fires, or perched in loose groups on dead trees and wires. Their movements are seasonal and well known to safari operators, who time visits to the big colonies.