T he
Green Bee Eater
is also know as Asian
Green Bee eater, Small
Bee eater, Little Green
Bee eater and scientific
name is Merops orien-
talis. This bird known
with many local names
in different regional
areas likes in Gujara-
ti ‘LILO PATRANGO’
, in Hindi ‘HARIYAL’
, in Marathi ‘BAHI-
RA POPAT’ , in Nepali
‘MURLI CHARA’ etc.
The little green bee
eater is near passerine
bird in the bee eater
family. The green bee
eater is resident bird
and they are founds
widely in the Nile val-
ley,
western Ara-
bia, the Gambia to
Ethiopia, Saharan Af-
rica from Senegal and
Asia through India to
Vietnam. These birds
are mainly insects eat-
er and they founds in
forest, far from water,
thin scrub and grass-
lands. Likes other bee
eater , these birds are
more coloured and
colorful. They are long
about 10 inches with
central tail feathers.
Plumage of this bird is
bright green and tinged
with blue coloured
on throat. The upper
back part is golden
rufous, flight feathers
are rufous with green
and blackish. The the
legs are dark grey, iris
is crimson, the feet
are weak and joined
with the three toes at
the base and the bill
is black. South East
birds have green up-
perparts, rufous crown
and face while Ara-
bian birds has bluish
underparts, wings are
green, green crown,
beak is black. This is
an
abun-
dant fairly tame bird
which breeds in open
country with bushes.
Africa and
Arabia
they are found in arid
areas. They are mostly
found in plain areas
but sometimes they
are founds in Himali-
yas at 6000 feets hight.
They are resident birds
in lowlands of South
Asia. The green bee
eater eat bees, insects,
wasps, ants which are
caughts in air. They are
sluggish in the morn-
ings. They are sand
bathe frequently while
other bee eater bathe
in water. They are
seens in groups while
sometimes seen in 250
to 300 of large num-
bers. The Breeding sea-
son is start in March
and end in June. They
are make solitary nest
and tunnel in a sandy
bank. The nest of this
bird is 5 to 6 feet long
and they laids glossy
white coloured 2 to
5 eggs. They showed
an ability to predict,
they feed on flying in-
sects and sometimes
known to take crabs.
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