bzr-git produces confusing error message for empty repositories

I tried

  bzr branch git://git.savannah.gnu.org/make.git

The result was this strange error message:

  bzr: ERROR: The ref None was not found.

Trying the same with git gives this:

  git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/make.git
  Initialized empty Git repository in ~eliz/git/make/.git/
  warning: You appear to have cloned an empty repository.

It would be nice if bzr could produce a similar error understandable by mere mortals...

Here's the bzr backtrace from .bzr.log:

1.750 Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bzrlib\commands.pyo", line 926, in exception_to_return_code
  File "bzrlib\commands.pyo", line 1126, in run_bzr
  File "bzrlib\commands.pyo", line 691, in run_argv_aliases
  File "bzrlib\commands.pyo", line 713, in run
  File "bzrlib\cleanup.pyo", line 135, in run_simple
  File "bzrlib\cleanup.pyo", line 165, in _do_with_cleanups
  File "bzrlib\builtins.pyo", line 1199, in run
  File "D:/usr/Bazaar/plugins\git\remote.py", line 402, in last_revision
  File "D:/usr/Bazaar/plugins\git\remote.py", line 421, in head
NoSuchRef: The ref None was not found.