Nature in Our Neighborhood: Green Bee-eaters

[Girish S V]

Now that the elections are over, a new mail thread on the serious stuff ;-) This is an occasional series on the flora and fauna in our neighborhood.

These Green Bee-eaters can often be seen sitting on electric wires. A common place to see them is the wires running beside the army ground on Haralur Road.You can see them sitting on the electric wires and making periodic flights to catch insects in the air. They have a very graceful flight and landing pattern. After the bee-eater catching an insect in flight, before swallowing it, the bee-eater removes stings and breaks the exoskeleton of the prey by repeatedly thrashing it on the perch.

​

Disclaimer: While the photographs are mine, some of the details are courtesy Wikipedia.