The birds and the bees

November 29, 2021 a-roving take a picture the birds and the trees

This is the third in a series of posts featuring photographs
taken during our trip to Botswana and Uganda in August 2021. 

The bee-eaters

Bee-eaters simply beg to be photographed! Not only are they exceptionally colorful and beautiful, but one of this bird’s strategies for attracting the bees and other insects that are its main food is simply to sit on a twig — often with several friends — and make like a flower. The hapless insects just come to them! (As do the photographers.)

And the birds make short work of the bugs. Once she’s grabbed up a bee in her bill, the bee-eater proceeds to bash the insect against a branch to make sure it can’t sting her on the way down her gullet. Brutal but effective.

We saw five species of bee-eaters, each more colorful than the last: southern carmine, little, white-faced, and Madagascar — along with the red-throated bee-eater, above, which is probably my favorite. Take a look.

On chilly mornings, little bee-eaters huddle together for warmth.

Opinions differ as to the bee-eaters’ closest kin, but a large study from 2008 classified them with the rollers, the hoopoes, and the kingfishers. However, since these families diverged about forty million years ago (!) their kinship is a tad distant. Still, it gives me an excuse to include a roller and a hoopoe here. (I’ve already covered the kingfishers — see link, below.)

Like the bee-eaters, the lilac-breasted roller is a gaudy bird. Isn’t he a beauty? He is named for the aerobatic moves some of his kind display in courtship or when defending their territory. In flight he flashes the spectacular turquoise and cobalt of his wing feathers. Alas, I got only a fuzzy shot of that, but it gives you an idea.

The distinctive hoopoe gets its name in onomatopoeic imitation of its call. It can flare out its crest into a sort of crown, though we never witnessed this behavior.

Red and yellow and pink and green,
Purple and orange and blue:
I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow, too!

Connections
  • Wikipedia: Bee-eater
  • Wikipedia: Coraciidae
  • Wikipedia: Hoopoe. This article includes fascinating details about the hoopoe’s behavior and the folklore that surrounds them.
  • Wikipedia: I Can Sing a Rainbow. I think I learned this one in Girl Scout camp, about a million years ago!
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