Blue-tailed Bee-eater

This species, like other bee-eaters, is a richly coloured, slender bird. It is predominantly green; its face has a narrow blue patch with a black eye stripe, and a yellow and brown throat; the tail is blue and the beak is black. The three outer toes are united around their bases. It is around 29 cm long excluding the elongated central tail feathers, which are an additional 7 cm long, and a weight of around 29–43 grams. Sexes are alike. The juveniles are drabber, and lack the elongated central tail feathers. This species is usually found near water and like other bee-eaters it predominantly eats flying insects, especially bees (as large as the Xylocopa sp.), wasps and hornets, which are caught in the air by sorties from an open perch. They may also forage in flight over estuaries, backwaters and even over the sea but not far from the coast. This species probably takes bees and dragonflies in roughly equal numbers. The insects that are caught are beaten on the perch to kill them and break the exoskeleton. This habit is seen in many other members of the order Coraciiformes. They call mainly in flight with a rolling chirping whistling teerp. The only confusable species within its range is the blue-cheeked bee-eater which however tends to be found in drier areas. The blue-tailed differs in having the rump and tail blue rather than green and black. …

The species has a patchy breeding distribution across India, Myanmar, and parts of Southeast Asia. In India they are known to breed in several of the river valleys including those of the Godavari, Kaveri, Tunga Badra and Krishna rivers. They also nest in the eastern parts of Sri Lanka. Blue-tailed bee-eaters are seasonal in many parts of their range and are known to migrate diurnally en masse at some places like Tanjung Tuan (W. Malaysia) and Promsri Hill (southern Thailand). They are winter visitors in parts of Malaysia and peninsular India. The non-breeding ranges of the blue-cheeked bee-eater and blue-tailed overlap in some parts of Gujarat and western peninsular India.

Based on the presence of spores of Nosema ceranae in the droppings of blue-tailed bee-eaters, it has been suggested that they may be capable of distributing the parasite to bees across a wide geographic range. A species of feather louse, Brueelia superciliosa has been described from hosts of this species in Thailand.