White-fronted Bee-eater

Merops bullockoides

Lives in complex family clans where helpers babysit the chicks. Cliff-colony nester that beats bees on a branch first.

Habitat: Open savanna, wooded grassland, and semi-open dry woodland, typically near rivers, gullies, or other earthen banks/cliffs it needs for nest burrows; elevations roughly 1,400-2,000 m
Fun fact: White-fronted Bee-eaters live in dense cliff/riverbank colonies (often 100-200+ birds) organized into extended-family "clans," with one of the most complex cooperative-breeding social systems known in birds — non-breeding helpers, usually close kin, assist at roughly half of all nesting attempts.
Range: Sub-equatorial (Afrotropical) Africa, from Angola and Gabon in the west across to Tanzania and Kenya, south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to northeastern South Africa; sedentary/non-migratory across its range
Diet: Almost exclusively flying insects caught by aerial sallying from a perch; heavily dominated by bees and wasps (Hymenoptera, ~87% of prey — roughly half honey bees, ~20% stingless Trigona bees), with beetles (~6%), flies (~5%), and other insects making up the rest.
Size: 0.23 m
Lifespan: 7 years

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