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Mystery bird: little green bee-eater, Merops orientalis

The behaviour this Old World mystery bird uses to disarm stinging insects is innate (but improves with practice) includes video!

Little green bee-eater, Merops orientalis, also known as the least green bee-eater, the small green bee-eater, or simply as the green bee-eater, photographed in Thailand (Southeast Asia).

Image: Marie-Louise Ng, 8 July 2011 (with permission) [velociraptorize].

Question: These beautiful Old World mystery birds are highly aerial. Can you tell me which characters reveal this quality about them? Can you identify this species?

Response: This is a couple of little green bee-eaters, Merops orientalis, probably an adult with one of its youngsters. This Old World species is monomorphic (males and females are indistinguishable) -- and even the young birds are similar in appearance to the adults. A shared colour pattern generally indicates that the birds are socially monogamous, as this species is.

There are 26 species of bee-eaters, all of which have slender bodies and wings, consistent with their highly aerial lifestyle. These birds quickly dart out from one of several favourite perches to capture flying insects in their long, very pointed beaks.

They consume almost any insect, but tend to focus on hymenopterans, especially honeybees, hence their name. Bee-eaters disarm stinging prey by first smacking it on a branch and then, with their eyes closed, they rub the insect on the branch to discharge its venom.

Interestingly, this behaviour is innate, as demonstrated by a juvenile bird in captivity, which disarmed wild bees even though it had never seen them before. According to the published account, the young bird was stung on its first five tries, but after handling ten bees, it was as adept as adult birds. (pp. 286–325; ISBN: 978-8487334306 [Amazon UK; Amazon US])

Here's a really nice video that captures a little green bee-eater in Aurangabad (Maharashtra, India) disarming and eating a stinging insect:

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