About Merops nubicus J.F.Gmelin, 1788
Like other bee-eaters, Merops nubicus is a slender, richly colored bird. Its body is predominantly carmine, with a greenish blue head and throat, and a distinctive black mask. It has red eyes, a black, pointed, decurved beak, and elongated central tail feathers. The sexes look identical to one another. Juveniles can be told apart from adults by their lack of elongated central tail feathers, and the pinkish brown color of their mantle, chest, belly, and flanks. When in flight, its call is a deep, throaty tunk; when perched, it produces a series of rik notes. This species is native to Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo and Uganda. It has been recorded as a vagrant in Burundi. Sue McLaren and her colleagues have proposed that the distribution of the northern carmine bee-eater is closely tied to the presence of secondary loess deposits across Africa.
