Bird of the Week – Swallowtailed bee-eater
The bird's Zulu name is inkotha and in Afrikaans, swaelstertbyvreter.
THE swallowtailed bee-eater is a winter visitor to KZN, where they like arid acacia savanna, riverine trees and scrub, clearings and edges of woodland.
Found solitary or in pairs, these non-breeding birds may roost in small, close-packed groups on a branch.
They perch low down in a bush or tree and dart out to catch flying insects and often return to the same perch after each sally. The swallowtailed bee-eater’s food preference is insects especially bees, wasps, grasshoppers and cicadas.
These bee-eaters are silent and inconspicuous as a rule but the call is a high-pitched piping and buzzing ‘kweep, kweep, kweep’.
LISTEN:
Breeding season is from September to December, once they leave KZN for Mozambique. The nest is a tunnel of up to 1m long in low earth or a sandbank. Three to four white eggs are laid. The incubation and nestling time is unrecorded.
The bird’s Zulu name is inkotha and in Afrikaans, swaelstertbyvreter.
