Know Your African Wildlife:
Southern Carmine Bee-Eaters
C
armine bee-eaters are found right across Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. The northern species extends from Senegal to Somalia and down through Kenya; the southern species—which visits us in the Luangwa—is found from southern DRC across to western Tanzania and down to the northern parts of South Africa. Writer: Edward Selfe Photography: Edward Selfe
These birds are unmistakable! Apart from their northern cousins—which have a green face—there is no other bird that resembles them. Each year, they start to appear in Luangwa in the early dry season and announce their arrival with loud, resonant ‘terk, terk, terk’ calls from high in the sky.
Initially, they are scattered throughout the woodland, ‘hawking’ (see Seven Amazing Facts About Carmine BeeEaters) for large insects which form the basis of their diet. But as the dry season intensifies, and the river level drops, they start to congregate along the banks, seeking out suitable nesting sites. They require steep, solid sand river banks into which they can burrow a long tunnel; the bank must be soft enough to excavate but cohesive enough not to collapse even when hundreds of birds burrow two-metre-long tunnels into it! These steep banks give the birds’ nests protection from predators—such as baboons and raptors— which would attack either the eggs or the chicks. During the nest-building process, there are often squabbles over ‘real estate’ as they all compete for the prized spots. Once the nests are dug, the females lay a clutch of one to three eggs which they incubate. The males continue hawking for insects and delivering them back to the nests. The carmines are most active in the morning and evening when it is cool, and are often found resting in shady trees during the hottest hours. Since their activities often coincide with the sausage trees’ new leaf growth, we enjoy a vivid combination of crimson reds and intense greens.
