Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

Fascinating facts about the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

• A 31-cm blue-cheeked bee-eater looks like a living emerald arrow, and its two central tail feathers stretch another 7 cm like decorative streamers, making it look longer than a school ruler.
• When it builds a nest, this bee-eater digs a tunnel up to 3 m long into sandy banks, about the length of a small subway car, then lays usually six or seven smooth white eggs inside. The deep tunnel protects the clutch from predators and the harsh desert heat, illustrating a clever engineering solution in a seemingly simple bird.
• Both parents share the duty of keeping the eggs warm, but the female alone takes the night shift, incubating for 23–26 days until the chicks hatch. This night-only role hints at a division of labor that maximizes protection while the male can stay on guard during daylight.
• Although it breeds from eastern Turkey across Kazakhstan to India, the species spends the winter months in tropical Africa, covering a migration that spans continents. This long-distance journey highlights how a small bird can connect distant ecosystems, moving nutrients and genes across the Old World.
• Unlike many birds that perch on branches, the blue-cheeked bee-eater often chooses telephone wires as its hunting lookout, snapping up bees, wasps, hornets, and especially dragonflies in mid-air. Using human-made structures shows its adaptability and how wildlife can turn our infrastructure into a feeding platform.

At a glance

About the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

The blue-cheeked bee-eater (Merops persicus) flashes through the air like a living jewel, its slender frame cloaked in a vivid green plumage that shimmers against the sun-baked semi-desert where it breeds. A striking facial mask of blue flanks a bold black eye stripe, while a yellow-brown throat and a sleek black beak complete the palette. Measuring about 31 cm (12 in) in length, the bird’s tail is crowned with two elongated central feathers that add another 7 cm (2.8 in), the female’s streamers being slightly shorter. It favors sub-tropical semi-desert scrub dotted with acacias for nesting, carving tunnels 1–3 m (3–10 ft) into sandy banks, embankments, low cliffs or even the shores of the Caspian Sea, where it lays four to eight spherical white eggs and both parents share incubation duties, the female taking the night shift. When not tending its burrow, the blue-cheeked bee-eater becomes a master aerial hunter, perching on telephone wires to launch swift sorties that snatch bees, wasps, hornets, and, surprisingly, more dragonflies than any other prey item, supplemented by damselflies and lacewings. Its call, flatter and less fluty than that of the European bee-eater, echoes across open woodlands and grasslands where it winters in tropical Africa, while some Sahel populations remain resident year-round, and occasional vagrants drift north into Italy and Greece, hinting at the species’ remarkable migratory stamina.

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