Indian Roller is a common breeding resident
in dry lowlands up to lower hills, while uncommon and local in wet lowlands. It
is common mostly in coconut plantations, chena cultivation and such open areas,
usually as solitary birds or in pairs. It is known as Dumbonna among Sinhalese
people meaning Smoke-drinker since it has a habit of flying over the grass and
shrub fires usually when burning jungles for chena cultivation to catch
grasshoppers, beetles and other flying insects disturbed by the fire. Indian Roller
spend much of its time sitting on a telegraph wires, fence posts or any such
vantage points and flying down to catch its prey, which consists of
grasshoppers, beetles, lizards and such little animals. It breeds from January
to June laying 2-4 white eggs in a tree hole of a dead tree or in a rotten palm
trunk.
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