Blauracke
The European roller is a bird of warmer regions. The nominate subspecies breeds in northern Africa from Morocco to Tunisia, in southern and east-central Europe, and eastwards through northwestern Iran to southwestern Siberia. The subspecies "C. g. semenowi" breeds from Iraq and southern Iran east through Kashmir and southern Kazakhstan to Xinjiang. The European range was formerly more extensive, but there has been a long-term decline in the north and west, with extinction as a nesting bird in Sweden and Germany. The European roller is a long-distance migrant, wintering in Africa south of the Sahara in two distinct regions, from Senegal east to Cameroon and from Ethiopia west (with observations in the Degua Tembien mountains) to Congo and south to South Africa. Some populations migrate to Africa through India. A collision with an aircraft over the Arabian Sea has been recorded.