Status: Common summer visitor from early March to late September.
Food: Mainly bees, but also other flying insects.
Habits: This species nest in the holes burrowed into tail sandbanks where they from very large colonies, often of several hundred nest. Once the breeding season is over and the young birds have left the nest, they disperse and that is when they are seen at IRRI. Small flocks will perch on the wires alongside the roads or sit on the dirt roads themselves. They feed by flying low over the rice catching insects in flight.
The blue-tailed bee-eater (Merops philippinus) is a near passerine bird in the bee- eater family Meropidae. It breeds in southeastern Asia. It is strongly migratory, seen seasonally in much of peninsular India.
This species is sometimes considered to be con-specific with the blue-cheeked bee-eater, M. persicus.
This species, like other bee-eaters, is a richly coloured, slender bird. It is predominantly green; its face has a narrow blue patch with a black eye stripe, and a yellow and brown throat; the tail is blue and the beak is black. It can reach a length of 23–26 cm, including the two elongated central tail feathers. Sexes are alike.
This is a bird which breeds in sub-tropical open country, such as farmland, parks or rice fields. It is most often seen near large water-bodies. Like other bee-eaters it predominantly eats insects, especially bees, wasps and hornets, which are caught in the air by sorties from an open perch.This species probably takes bees and dragonflies in roughly equal numbers. The insect that are caught are beaten on the perch to kill and break the exoskeleton. This habit is seen in many other members of the coraciiformes order.
These bee-eaters are gregarious, nesting colonially in sandy banks or open flat areas. They make a relatively long tunnel in which the 5 to 7 spherical white eggs are laid. Both the male and the female take care of the eggs. These birds also feed and roost communally. The call is similar to that of the European bee-eater.