{"id":40303,"date":"2013-06-02T11:13:20","date_gmt":"2013-06-02T10:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=40303"},"modified":"2019-12-22T22:48:19","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T09:48:19","slug":"the-european-bee-eater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/the-european-bee-eater\/","title":{"rendered":"The European bee eater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Merops apiaster Coraciiformes – Meropidae<\/p>\n

They are back from their African winter quarters end of may in the South of France but mainly in Spain early in may. As Carrion crows, Black kites and some parrot species, they live as couples within a same colony and mate for life. It is awesome and inspiring to see how caring they are to one another but also very interesting. <\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

As all birds and animals in general, they preen often as they are plagued with parasites:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eater – Merops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eater<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

They feed exclusively on insects. Even ‘stinking’ bugs are part of the diet!<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Shortly after their arrival on their nesting sites, males make offerings to their mates: this is an incentive ritual to induce the pair into breeding conditions.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once in a while, they regurgitate an elongated dark pellet: it is the undigested crushed keratin of the insects’ exoskeleton they swallow whole:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Both birds are involved in the process of digging a new hole if the old one is not available anymore. While one is busy…<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eater Merops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

…the other encourages the partner:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eater Merops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

And then, mating occurs of course, a fantastic sight for the photographer:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

The female stays a while longer, stretching and preening before flying off to feed:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
European bee eaterMerops apiaster<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Merops apiaster Coraciiformes – Meropidae They are back from their African winter quarters end of may in the South of France but mainly in Spain early in may. As Carrion crows, Black kites and some parrot species, they live as couples within a same colony and mate for life. It is awesome and inspiring to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":2193009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Ois-Guepier-D57000-5257-120513.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[1886,832,4635,2571,189],"class_list":["post-40303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-bird","tag-european-bee-eater","tag-merops-apiaster","tag-noushka","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2193009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}