Photo: Pierre Dalous · CC BY-SA 3.0
European bee-eater
Merops apiaster
A rainbow in flight: with its dazzling colours and ringing call, the bee-eater is among the most beautiful birds in Europe, an acrobatic hunter of bees and dragonflies.
Characteristics
Temperament
Social, gregarious and noisy, it lives and nests in colonies. An acrobatic hunter and migrant; it announces summer with its bubbling call.
Diet
Insectivore: bees, wasps, hornets, dragonflies and other flying insects, caught in flight.
A rainbow in flight
The European bee-eater is one of the most spectacular and colourful birds in Europe. Its plumage is a mosaic of vivid hues: a chestnut and golden back, blue-green wings, a yellow throat edged with black and a turquoise belly. The bill is long, slender and slightly curved, perfect for catching insects on the wing. Slim and elegant, it has a tail with two elongated central feathers. When a group of bee-eaters lands on a wire, it looks like a necklace of gems.
The bee hunter
As its name says, the bee-eater specialises in hunting hymenopterans: bees, wasps and hornets, as well as dragonflies and other flying insects. It catches them in flight with acrobatic manoeuvres, then returns to a perch where it performs a curious ritual: it repeatedly beats the prey against the branch and rubs its abdomen to remove the sting and squeeze out the venom before swallowing it. This technique lets it safely feed even on armed insects.
Nests dug in the earth
The bee-eater nests in colonies, digging long horizontal tunnels in sandy walls, riverbanks and eroded slopes. At the end of the tunnel, which can be several metres long, it widens a chamber where it lays its eggs. Living in a colony offers protection from predators and opportunities for socialising: bee-eaters are very gregarious, noisy birds.
A great migrant
The bee-eater is a migrant that spends the winter in Africa, south of the Sahara, and returns to Europe and western Asia in spring to breed. Its arrival, announced by its characteristic bubbling call, is one of the finest signs of approaching summer.
Conservation
The bee-eater is classified as least concern and its populations are generally stable, indeed expanding northwards thanks to the warmer climate. Locally it may be threatened by the destruction of nesting sites and by persecution from beekeepers. Overall, however, it remains a joyful and colourful symbol of European biodiversity.
