Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Chestnut-headed Bee-eater (Merops apiaster)


Rather local breeding resident than uncommon, found in forests and open areas with trees from lowlands to mid hills. It lives as pairs or small flocks. Its food consists mainly of flying insects.  It has been observed that this Bee-eater is diving into the water like kingfishers but whether it is to catch water insects/fish or it merely take a ‘plunge bath’ is uncertain. It dig a burrow into an earth bank with the end enlarged into a spherical chamber and lays 3-4 eggs during March to May. 

සිංහලෙන් කියවන්න >>

4 comments:

  1. Nice photograph as usual. It seems much better if you can mention the common name (sinhala name)of the bird too. Wish you all the best! (PLEASE REMOVE THE WORD VERIFICATION OF THE COMMENTS TOO)

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  2. Thanks Dilshan
    About the common Sinhala names - First of all thanks again for the suggestion. But...It is only less than 100 birds breeding/Migrating in Sri Lanka have common Sinhalese names and even those are vary with the geographical location of the country, while some time having same name for two different species of birds. And also those names are not specific enough to distinguish some closely related species ( Such as all gulls and terns are Muhudu Lihiniya). To get rid of these matters both Ceylon bird club and Field ornithology group came up with two different sets of Sinhala names for all birds recorded in Sri Lanka. But unfortunately they replaced some good common names with bit odd coined names (such as Rahanmara for Siwuru Hora/Sudu redihora) and most of those names are mere Sihalization of Common English names ( Such as Awasatha for Avocet). Under such a situation I would prefer to mention Sinhala names for birds in my blog posts only when a name exist among common folks with regard that bird without sticking to one or other bird expert groups.
    Btw I didn't get what you meant by "PLEASE REMOVE THE WORD VERIFICATION OF THE COMMENTS TOO"> pls clarify.

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    1. pls clarify.>
      That means when someone tries to comment ur post it is needed to solve a capture puzzle. It discourages the reader to comment ur post. To remove this go to the dash board of your blogger account and Click on Settings>Posts and Comments>Select No on "show word verification"

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    2. Yep.. A good suggestion. Thanks for pointing it out. it is done(Y)

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