Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

The blue-cheeked bee-eater is a slender, richly coloured bee-eater up to 31cm long, plus central tail streamers of about 7cm. It is mainly green, with blue sides to the face, a black eye stripe, a yellow and brown throat and a black bill. The sexes are mostly alike, but the female's tail streamers are shorter. It is closely related to the blue-tailed bee-eater (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in subtropical semi-desert with a few trees such as acacias, nesting alone or in loose colonies of up to ten birds, and winters in open woodland or grassland. Like other bee-eaters it catches insects in the air from an open perch, favouring telephone wires where available, but it probably takes more dragonflies than anything else, along with bees, wasps and damselflies. It is generally strongly migratory, most birds wintering in tropical Africa. SoIB 2023 lists it as resident and a summer visitor in India with a moderate range, and rates it a Low conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).