hi, I am a Blue-tailed Bee-eater. They call me scientifically Merops philippinus. I belong to great bee-eater family called Meropidae. We bee-eaters rank among the most delightful birds on Earth and possess startling grace and beauty.
My species very similar and is sometimes considered to be conspecific with the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater (Merops persicus). We live throughout South East Asia. We are strongly migratory.
Like other bee-eaters, I am a richly-colored, slender bird with predominantly green; my 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. I can grow to a length of 23-26 cm, including the two elongated central tail feathers. Even though we have confusion in our sexes as both sexes are alike we manage to breed along. 😉
We love to breed in sub-tropical open country, such as farmland, parks or rice fields. My favorite spots are near large water bodies. Like other bee-eaters our main food are insects. I love bees, wasps and hornets. I enjoy catching them in the air by sorties from an open perch. I like to eat bees and dragonflies in roughly equal numbers. The insects that are caught needs to be beaten on the perch to kill and break their exoskeleton.
We bee-eaters are gregarious, make nesting colonially in sandy banks or open flat areas. 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. We also feed and roost communally.
My photographs were taken with Canon EOS 7D and Canon EF 300mm f/4.0 L IS USM lens. If you liked my story please send me your comments.
Lovely shots and info as always
“manage to breed along”.. hahahahaha.. nice!
The shot with two birds is great. Love the open wings!
can we use canon EF 300mm f/4 L is lense with 2x lll extender.it can give sharp image quality????????
You can use it with 300mm f/4L. Drawbacks are auto focus will not work as your camera cannot focus at the new minimal aperture of f/8. IS works. Focus can only be done manually but focus confirmation points will show in the center focus area. Sharpness will suffer, but still the picture is usable. You may get some softening due to diffraction, especially if you have a body with very small pixels, on a full frame it is not an issue.