Colourful little heralder of the migratory season
By Ismeth Raheem
The sudden appearance of the Blue tailed Bee-eater in Colombo signals the arrival of the migrant season. Although not by far the earliest winter visitor, it is by far one of the most colourful and graceful of the more common birds to visit our shores. Among the urban population particularly for keen bird watchers, it triggers a renewed interest in observing these wonderful birds.
The Bee-eater is a passerine bird of the family Meropidae and it is only one of the four species observed here that is a regular annual winter visitor. The other two, the Green Bee-eater and the Chestnut Bee-eater are resident birds and were often observed in Colombo in the 1900s but now are hardly recorded. The third species, the European Bee-eater is often classed as a vagrant, and is an occasional, irregular winter visitor. The Blue tailed Bee-eater makes its landfall early in September each year in the North and East and spreads all over the island. In Colombo and its environs, the Blue tailed Beeeater makes its presence felt in the middle of September some times as late as the first week of October, returning to its breeding grounds in the north of the sub-continent by the middle of April.
As a keen naturalist, I have maintained records of this species and other birds over several years, particularly in the suburbs of Kollupitiya and Cinnamon Gardens in Colombo and find the dates - the arrival and departure times of the Blue tailed Bee-eater rarely vary and if so only by a few days.
This species is richly coloured like other Bee-eaters and one cannot help noticing small flocks of 4-10 birds perched on leafless twigs at the top of tall trees ,T.V. antennas and electrical wires along Colombo’s roads. More often these birds are observed in open fields, playgrounds, or grasslands where they sally out from a vantage point gracefully, alternately flapping their wings vigorously and then gliding with outspread wings, hawking insects while flying, often returning repeatedly to the very same perch. These aerobatic birds often do the same type flights over small pools of water, streams and lakes frequently plunging into the water.
Many insects like dragonflies to which they are partial are snapped out in just a fraction of a second over the surface of water, and taken to their perch, shaken violently, battered to death and consumed rapidly.
Their food largely consists of flying insects, bees, beetles, and occasionally wasps. They have also been observed with small lizards in their beaks, or very rarely also fishing to augment their diet. Holdsworth, one of Legge’s informants refering to his 1872 study Ceylonese Birds made this fascinating note of a Bee-eater at Arippu where he was stationed
“In the early mornings of March when there has been but little wind stirring, and the sea was as smooth as glass, I have frequently observed this Beeeater hunting for insects close to the surface, and a quarter of a mile from shore”.
The birds nest colonially and gregariously during March to June and usually tunnel into vertical earth cuttings, river banks or sandy cliffs with burrows up to six to eight feet deep.
In a rare sighting in April 1960, C.E. Norris, a former tea planter and naturalist observed the Blue tailed Bee- eater nesting on a sandy earth cutting at Kumana (Ruhunu National Park), in the Eastern Provincethe only known record of this species nesting in Sri Lanka.
Both the adults and juveniles arrive together from far afield as West Pakistan, in northern India in northwest Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and west to Bengal, Assam and through south to Mysore. Birds also breed in Nepal and further east.
This small species of bird measuring less than 12 inches (of which half of it is a filament like tail) with a wing measurement of only 5 inches makes this ardous journey. Delicate and fragile, flying over thousands of miles from their breeding grounds, over natural and man made obstacles travelling along river courses and surmounting mountain ranges, deserts, forests, and seas.
This species of Bee-eater subject to the geographical location of their breeding grounds either takes a westerly route or alternatively others of the same species migrate in an easterly direction to arrive here mainly along the coastal districts of the eastern seaboard. A miraculous sight to witness are the thousands of these Blue tailed Bee-eaters soon after reaching their destination gathering at the same site year after year to rest and recoup. Once they arrive in large numbers they rapidly scatter throughout the island, both in the lowlands and right up to Nuwara Eliya (6000 feet) in the hills but are more commonly observed in the lower coastal plains.
The Bee -eaters often roost together in vast numbers overnight in groups of hundreds mainly for safety from predator attack. The same collective gathering of hundreds of birds roosting together occurs just before making their return migration to their breeding grounds. In 1870, Colonel Vincent Legge in his monumental work The History of the Birds of Ceylon(1869-70) commented on this strange behavioural trait: “Its departure from the Island is as sudden as it is regular, in proof which I may state that at Galle, in two successive seasons, I observed it collect in large flocks between the 29th and 31 March, and disappear entirely on 1, April.”
Holdsworth experienced the same type of gathering on the Arripu coastal districts. The Blue tailed Bee-eater winters in Sri Lanka, Maldives, Coco, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines and rarely as far as in China.
The famous Swedish scientist Carl von Linnaeus was the first to suggest its scientific name Merops philippinus. The first part Merops- is the Greek for Bee-eater. The second Philippinus is probably from the Latin scientific nomenclature for the Philippines –the first most likely site from which it was collected. The species was scientifically described and taxonomically classified by Carl von Linaeus, the great Swedish scientist, botanist and physician from Upsala in his epoch-making work Systema Naturae 1766-7.
The Sinhalese name. Nathal kurula, Kurumini Kurulla is quite obvious to anyone and its appearance during the Christmas season and its great partiality to beetles have been given the name Kuruminya bird (Kurulla). The Tamil name -Katalam kuruvi- is based on the bird’s tail resemblance to the Aloe plant – a rather fanciful comparison.
Edgar Layard, one the early authorities on the bird studies in the 1850s and familiar with ornithological observations in the Jaffna district believes that the Portuguese name for this bee-eater was Pappugai de Champ-Ground Parrot.
One of the earliest illustrations of the Blue tailed Beeeater for ornithological studies for naturalists and scientists in 18th century Europe was based on an image by the Sri Lankan naturalist artist Pieter de Bevere (c1722-1781) who worked as a naturalist draughtsman for Gideon Loten known as the naturalist Governor for the Dutch East India Company’s territories in Sri Lanka between 1752-57. This and fifty or more drawings by de Bevere were later copied by Sydney Parkinson under the instruction of his patron Sir Joseph Banks. Both men sailed as naturalist and artist with Captain Cook on his first voyage around the world.
Several of the drawings by de Bevere were incorporated in the works of 18th century European naturalists and scientists, in their publications related to the study of birds in the Indian region including George Edwards, Thomas Pennant, Johann Reinhold Forster, Peter Brown, Peter Mazell and Johann Fredrich Gmelin.
This accurate and valuable portfolio of 153 drawings ([birds, mammals, fish, and insects) is now deposited in the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London.