Cinnamon-chested Bee-eaters, Merops oreobates
NAIROBI, KENYA –
Several Cinnamon-chested Bee-eaters (Merops oreobates) hang out on the wires behind our house, where they can watch for flying insects attracted to nearby flowering trees. Bee-eaters are well known for catching bees in midair and then discharging the insects’ venom by rubbing them against a perch or squeezing the abdomen before swallowing.
Bee-eaters make up a colorful family that ranges widely across Eurasia, Africa, and Australasia. I encountered them first in Papua New Guinea’s highlands and have also seen them in Australia, southeast Asia, and Africa.
Bee-eaters belong to the Coraciiformes with rollers, ground rollers, todies, motmots, and kingfishers. They do look a bit like motmots, and they excavate nest burrows in the ground like kingfishers.
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Wow! They’re beautiful birds. Nice collection and arrangement of colors.
These are one of my favorite species of birds. In the western ghats of India where I live, these bee-eaters are quite common. They look a bit different in colors however.
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