Our little Quiddich player: Little Green Bee Eater

Little Green Bee Eater

Gujarati Name : લીલો પતરંગો

Hindi Name : पतरिंगा, हरियल

This little bird transforms our little garden into a playing field. Performing aerial acrobatics to catch its prey in mid air, almost like the game of 'Quiddich' played at Hogwarts by Harry Potter. Like all bee eaters, this one too has a beautiful green plumage with a dark bluish green on its neck. Though small it appears slightly big due to its elongated central tail feather.

It is very interesting to watch this bee eater catch its prey which mainly consists of butterflies, bees, grasshoppers, beetles, mantises, dragonflies, moths etc. It first selects a tree/wire to perch on, at a height not more than 10-13 feet. In our garden it is mostly chooses one of the Gulmohar trees or Fig tree. It then eyes its prey, swiftly goes for it, snaps it and returns to its place on the same tree/wire. For insects which have a poisonous sting (bees) or a hard exoskeleton, it hits the prey on the branch to break it before it feasting on it.

These birds are mostly seen in groups of 4-5 but I have never seen them fight over their prey in all these years ( yes, they are our daily visitors..thanks to plenty of butterflies).So I assume they have a mutual understanding of their territories. They make nests in mud bank, so my good guess is that I might be lucky to see one on the banks of the lake few meters away from my place.
On reading more about this species, got to know of a very interesting breeding behavior. During breeding, the couple is often helped by the third bee eater in building the nest. What a wonderful co-operative breeding behavior!!! And it is across all the 11 species of this bird.