One of the birds I remember most clearly from my first visit to Ethiopia, just over 20 years ago, is the Northern carmine bee-eater. Last year I photographed its southern relative (the Southern carmine bee-eater) in Botswana and now I was fortunate enough to encounter a small flock of the 'northerners' jut by Lake Awassa. The angle of the photograph also highlights the most obvious difference in relation to the Southern carmine bee-eater. Both are carmine colored, with long tails, but it is in the area around the throat that the two species differ. While the southern variant has a carmine-colored chin and only the upper part of the head is blue-green, the northern species has an olive-green area under the chin that results in the head as a whole being perceived as blue-green. Like its southern relative, it nests in colonies. The nest is excavated in embankments and river banks. Like all bee-eaters, it subsits mainly on insects: e.g. grasshoppers, locusts and bees.