White-fronted Bee-eater Merops bullockoides Scientific name definitions

23 cm; 28–38 g. White forehead and forecrown feathers become pointed and spiky with wear and greyish feather bases show through, so top of head looks mealy or scruffy; cheeks and chin snowy white, sharply defined from black mask and scarlet throat; scarlet feathers silky; hind­crown and hindneck bronze-buff, back, wings and tail blue-tinged green, wings with black trailing edge, uppertail-coverts blue; spread tail uniform green above, blackish below; green upperparts fade to mottled bluish, especially on tertials; breast and belly buff, thighs and undertail-coverts blue; iris dark brown. Birds from S Tanzania darker, belly washed cinnamon. Differs from M. bulocki in white head markings, blue uppertail-coverts, bluer colour of back, wings and tail. Sexes alike. Juvenile like adult, but red of throat and blue of tail-coverts, flanks and vent less intense, whitish facial marks less strongly contrasting with adjacent colours.

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W Gabon, NE DRCongo (Virunga National Park) and NW Kenya (L Turkana) S to Angola, N & E Botswana, and C & E South Africa (to Free State and KwaZulu-Natal).

Broadleaf and mixed woodland along perennial rivers, dry watercourses in well-wooded country, eroded gulleys, scrub-covered stony hillsides, bushy pasture; in South Africa, associated with bee-attracting exotic trees such as eucalypts.

Generally resident; little evidence for any regular migrations, but seasonal variation in reporting rates in Zimbabwe and Transvaal, where commoner in Apr–Sept than Oct–Mar, and in S Africa often seen as partial migrant moving N after breeding; said to be passage migrant in Mar in C Shaba, Zaire. Vagrants near Namibian and S Cape coasts show that birds can wander great distances.

Hymenoptera form 87% of diet; also eats beetles, bugs, flies, dragonflies, damselflies, moths, butterflies, grasshoppers  and cicadas. Hunts mainly from lower levels of trees and tall shrubs in bushy grassland; hawks with rapid dash out from perch and seizing or chasing insect, or makes slower, gliding flight down towards grass and low herbage and momentarily hovers to seize insect from it. Clan’s foraging territory up to 7 km from breeding cliff, and clan-members space themselves out and hunt solitarily. Individual bird makes c. 300 sallies a day, nearly all to within 15 m of perch; good correlation of increasing prey size and capture rate with distance; overall success rate varies between 50% and 70%.

Commonest call is a nasal, muffled “nyaah” or “gauuu”, sometimes faintly bisyllabic or slightly rolled. In groups, several birds typically call simultaneously (1 Fry, C. H., K. Fry, and A. Harris (1992). Kingfishers, Bee-eaters and Rollers. Christopher Helm, London, UK. Close ).

In Kenya eggs laid in all months, mainly Oct–Feb, then Apr–Jun; Aug–Sept in Angola and Zambia, Aug–Nov in Zimbabwe and South Africa; pairs sometimes nest again 5–7 months after successful breeding. Birds’ lives centred on traditional colony site throughout year, and society arguably the most complex and best-studied of any avian species; essentially monogamous, most pairs staying together for life, taking on helpers in some years or themselves helping to rear close relatives’ young in others; during its lifetime, individual can change roles between breeding and helping several times; colonies generally of 10–20 nests attended by 30–80 birds, some of up to 450 birds; 60% of breeding pairs have 1–5 helpers, these being yearlings or experienced past breeders, which help with excavation, incubation, brood-feeding, and defence of nest and feeding territory; 3–4 pairs with helpers comprise a clan, members of which are related and freely visit each other’s burrows, but repel attempts by non-members to enter burrows; 2 populations studied at Nakuru, Kenya, comprised c. 400 birds in 60 clans at 100 active nests; males preponderate, and most helpers are male. Nests in riverbank cliff or erosion gulley, excavated by all members of breeding unit; burrow 1–2 m long, ending in oval brood-chamber c. 20 cm long, 18 cm wide and 8 cm high. Males spend better part of day at colony, protecting female from enforced copulation by other males; 7% of all eggs in colony laid parasitically, parasitizing female spending much time observing neighbouring burrow-owners; to prevent being parasitized, female stays in her nest for most of daytime, removes any foreign egg before starting own clutch; considerable parent-offspring conflict, and parents may interfere in their son’s nesting to recruit him as own helper. Clutch of 2–5 eggs, average 3·06 in helped nests and 2·54 in unhelped ones; growth rates of nestlings flexible, an adaptation to food shortage in bad weather; nestling survival greatly enhanced when brood attended by helpers as well as parents. Average longevity 5–6 years; small proportion of birds much longer-lived.

Not globally threatened. Common and widespread. Has benefited from human activities by nesting in quarries and cuttings; range thought to be extending along river valleys in N Cape and Orange Free State. Present in several national parks, e.g. Lake Nakuru (Kenya), Victoria Falls and Zambezi (Zimbabwe) and Kruger (South Africa).