Food for a kingfisher and a bee-eater
Posted by BESG on 13 December 08, Saturday
Contributed by Subaraj Rajathurai
“While surveying birds at Tuas recently, Sham and I had a few good observations. In nice sunny weather, birds were quite active. With the help of my lumix, I managed to snap some nice shots. This included two common, pretty birds feeding.
“One was the White-throated Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis), a common resident of open country, feeding on a Garden Supple Skink (Lygosoma bowringii). The skink is a common, short-legged, worm-like reptile of gardens and parks. The kingfisher caught the skink and flew onto a chain, where it then proceeded to manoeuvre and swallowed the unfortunate lizard, while it was still alive. This was done within 20-30 seconds.
“The other was a Blue-tailed Bee-eater (Merops philippinus), a common migratory bird throughout Singapore, with a Decorative Tiger (Ictinogomphus decoratus) dragonfly. This dragonfly is a common, impressive species found around large and small bodies of water around our country. Despite the fairly large prey item, the bee-eater bashed the dragonfly and tried to swallow it. It then decided that a few more “whacks” were required. That was followed by the swallowing act that took only a few seconds.
“Always nice to be able to capture photos of bird behaviour, despite the limitations of my equipment.”
Subaraj Rajathurai
12th December 2008
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. |
Categories: Bee-eaters, Feeding-invertebrates, Feeding-vertebrates, Kingfishers
Comment by Natural Moments
Made Saturday, 13 of December , 2008 at 5:01 pm
Excellent photographs of your kingfisher foraging. Nice Website.
Happy Holidays….
Pingback by Bird Ecology Study Group » Food for a kingfisher and a bee-eater | catveranda.com
Made Sunday, 14 of December , 2008 at 7:05 am
[...] More here [...]
