Once more, staff members at the Qinghuahai wetland park in southwest Yunnan’s Baoshan City saw around 30 blue-tailed bee-eaters flying or settling in the bushes on April 8. The bird first appeared at the same park last year in a smaller number.

This species is a richly coloured, slender bird. With a size of 25-31cm, the bird looks predominantly green. Its face has a narrow blue patch with a black eye stripe. The tail is blue and the beak is black.

Feathers under its wings are orange-yellow. Under the sunlight, the bird is shining with luster. Breeding from April to June, the blue-tailed bee-eaters are called a most beautiful bird by Chinese photographers.

Like other bee-eaters, it mostly eats insects, especially bees, wasps and hornets, which are caught in the air by sorties from an open perch. This species probably takes bees and dragonflies in roughly equal numbers.

The bird mainly live in Southeast Asia, east China, and part of Yunnan. Included in the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species in 2013, the bee eater is also a species under state protection in China.

Source: Yunan Net; trans-editing by Wang Shixue