Of all the beautifully coloured birds we have in Australia, the Rainbow Bee-eater would have to be one of the most splendid.
Because of its colours, it is also simply called the Rainbow Bird. The name Bee-eater explains why it is so unpopular with Apiarists as a flock of these birds could decimate a bee hive in a fairly short time.
For its nest, the Bee-eater burrows out a tunnel in the sand or creek bank and lays its eggs in a chamber at the end.
On the day of this photo, we were at a small seaside place and came across a fairly narrow street that was running parallel to the beach.
The whole length of this strip was well looked after as, on our right hand side, there was a lovely green mown area about 20 metres wide, just inside natural scrub which extended some way to the sandy beach. To the left was a wider mown area right back to the fences of a row of houses.
Some taller trees were scattered along the street. To my delight, we could see and hear Rainbow Birds. I stopped the car and as we watched, we counted at least ten burrows in the sand amongst the green grass.
All of these seemed to have birds coming and going to them. I selected one and moved the car to where I could photograph through the open window as the bird returned to the entrance with food.
I was also in a good position to see a couple of the parents when they landed in the trees opposite. The illustration shows one of those birds with its catch just before it dived down and in to the tunnel.
I moved my car to a few different sites during the afternoon to get the best light available.
We half expected that someone from one of the houses would come out to see what we were doing, but everyone just ignored us.
