Bee-eater

Listen to example recordings of the main vocalisations of Bee-eater, provided by xeno-canto contributors.

This species can be found on the following statutory and conservation listings and schedules.

Species of European Conservation Concern	Least Concern
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (global)	Least Concern
Schedule 1 license required (to disturb)	Yes
Birds Directive Annex 1	No
Listed on the Annexes of	WCA(I), Bern(III), Bonn(II)

Historically, this species has been a scarce migrant to the UK, but the number of breeding records has increased recently with breeding attempts occurring in 2002, 2005 and 2006, and then two pairs nesting in both 2014 and 2015 and three pairs in 2017 (RBBP data). It is still unclear whether or not these records represent the early stages of colonisation of the UK.

Bee-eaters are scarce passage migrants and very rare breeders. During 2008–11 there is a wide scatter of breeding season passage birds but none attempted to breed. More recently two pairs successfully nested in a quarry in North Norfolk in 2022.

Occupied 10-km squares in UK

European Distribution Map

European Breeding Bird Atlas 2

Bee-eaters are scarce spring overshoot migrants and very rare breeders. Most records are from late spring into summer, with reporting higher than the historical average due to a well-publicised breeding event in 2022.

View a summary of recoveries in the Online Ringing Report.

Sample sizes are too small to report Biometrics for this species.

Feather measurements and photos on featherbase

Field Codes

2-letter: MZ | 5-letter code: BEEEA | Euring: 8400

For information in another language (where available) click on a linked name

Causes of change

The northward range expansion of the Bee-eater is likely to be driven, at least in part, by the effects of climate change. Predictions based on models of future climate conditions suggest that further northwards range expansion will occur within Europe, although the predictions for the UK are variable and depend on the algorithms selected for the modelling (Stiels et al. 2021).