| Greater Honeyguide Indicator indicator |
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Ghana and Ethiopia The Greater Honeyguide is distributed in Africa south of the Sahara and is found in a wide variety of habitats apart from dense forest, swamps and barren deserts. See the distribution map at Birdlife International. |
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It feeds on beeswax both from active and abandoned hives but also on grubs or eggs from the hive. It guides humans to bee hives probably in a symbiotic relationship whereby the humans will break open the hive to extract the honey after smoking out the bees which allows the Honeyguide to get at the beeswax. | |||
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The male has a whitish ear patch, a blackish throat and a pinkish bill though colours fade with time. There is also a yellow
wing patch which is not always visible. The female is duller, lacking the head pattern and with a dark bill. The juvenile in photo 3 looks very
different with yellow on much of the throat and breast.
The guiding call is a loud, fast chattering but it also has a song WHIT-birr-WHIT--birr... ending with a single WHIT. |
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