Green Bee Eater (সবুজ সুইচোরা পাখি) Merops orientalis

  

         Bengali Name    :  Shobuj Shuichora (সবুজ সুইচোরা), Shobuj Bashpati (সবুজ বাঁশপাতি).
         Common Name : Green Bee Eater.
         Scientific Name : Merops orientalis 

Bangladesh is blessed with lot of beautiful birds and 'Green Bee Eater' is one of those. This is mainly native to African and Asian region. In Bangladesh this bird is vastly seen. We use to call this as Shobuj Shuichora (সবুজ সুইচোরা পাখি), Shobuj Bashpati (সবুজ বাঁশপাতি পাখি), in Bangladesh. It's scientific name is Merops orientalis and it belongs to the family Meropidae.

Like other bee-eaters, this species is a richly coloured, slender bird. It is about 9 inches (16–18 cm) long with about 2 inches made up by the elongated central tail-feathers. The sexes are not visually distinguishable. The entire plumage is bright green and tinged with blue especially on the chin and throat. The crown and upper back are tinged with golden rufous. The flight feathers are rufous washed with green and tipped with blackish. A fine black line runs in front of and behind the eye. The iris is crimson and the bill is black while the legs are dark grey. The feet are weak with the three toes joined at the base. Southeast Asian birds have rufous crown and face, and green underparts, whereas Arabian beludschicus has a green crown, blue face and bluish underparts. The wings are green and the beak is black. The elongated tail feathers are absent in juveniles. Sexes are alike.  The calls is a nasal trill tree-tree-tree-tree, usually given in fligh 

Green bee eaters are not good at building nests. It mainly builds it's nest on the bank of the river (or any other steep bank of wet lands) by making a hole in soil (or sand). Both male and female raise the babies. I have seen this in 2015 at sherpur of bogra district, these birds were having plenty of nest on the bank of dhunat Upazila of bogra district. But that time I didn't know much about this bird and thought those as a variety of a parrot. 

They feed on flying insects and can sometimes be nuisance to bee-keepers. The preferred prey was mostly beetles followed by appear to be avoided.They are sometimes known to take crabs. Like most other birds they regurgitate the hard parts of their prey as pellets^.

With a dragonfly as a meal.

 

 Photos of this article were taken from several places of Bogra district in Bangladesh during the year 2016