Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS

THE ROLLERS AND THEIR ALLIES

THE BEE-EATERS

(Family Meropida)

The Bee-eaters — so called from their insectivorous habits — constitute a compact and well-marked group of small or medium-sized birds of brilliant plumage and graceful habits, confined in their distribution to the temperate and tropical portions of the Old World.

They show evident points of relationship with the Rollers, Jacamars, and Kingfishers, agreeing with the latter especially in the form of feet, and in the economy of nature seem to fill the place in the Old World occupied by the Jacamars in the New World. They have a long, slender bill which is gently curved throughout and provided with a well-marked ridge on the culmen. The legs and feet are feeble and syndactyle, that is, the fourth or outer toe is united to the middle toe as far as the last joint, while the second and third toes are united by the basal joint only.

The primaries are ten in number and the tail-feathers twelve; the sexes are alike or nearly so in plumage. The Bee-eaters are disposed among five genera and about forty species, of which more than half are confined to the Ethiopian region, but they are also well represented in the Indian and Australian regions, with a limited number extending into the Palaearctic region.

They are for the most part social and gregarious birds, even during the breeding season, and frequently nest in colonies. They are arboreal in their habits, frequenting forests and plains and showing a special liking for the vicinity of rivers, in the banks of which they mostly make their nest burrows. These holes, which they excavate for themselves, often extend for six or eight feet into the bank; the eggs, without exception, are pure white and glossy. The notes of the Bee-eater are usually described as harsh and unmelodious.

 

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