Small Bee-eater
The Small Bee-eater also known as little Green Bee-eater is intensely
green overall with a greenish-blue throat, a thin black throat band, and
long central tail feathers.
The entire plumage is bright green and tinged with blue especially on the
chin and throat. The crown and upper back are tinged with golden rufous.
The flight feathers are rufous washed with green and tipped with blackish.
A fine black line runs in front of and behind the eye. The iris is crimson
and the bill is black while the legs are dark grey. The feet are weak with
the three toes joined at the base.
Local Names :
Patringa Harrial (Hindi)
Veli tatta (Malayalam)
Bee-eaters predominantly eat insects, especially bees, wasps and ants,
which are caught in the air by sorties from an open perch. Before swallowing
prey, a bee-eater removes stings and breaks the exoskeleton of the prey by
repeatedly thrashing it on the perch.
They nest in hollows in vertical mud banks. a horizontal or oblique
tunnel ending in a widened egg chamber, dug in the side of an
earth-cutting, borrow-pit or in uneven sandy ground.
The eggs are very spherical and glossy white.Both sexes incubate. The
eggs hatch asynchronously with an incubation period of about 14 days and
the chicks grow fledge in 3 to 4 weeks.
References
The Book of Indian Birds (Salim Ali)
Wikipedia
ebird.org
Pictures:
Pollachi, TamilNadu (2018)
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