LGBE

The little green bee-eater is a slip of a bird — barely bigger than a sparrow, and coloured a bright, leafy green from head to tail. The detail rewards a closer look: a slender, down-curved black bill, a fine dark line masking the eye, a thin black collar at the throat, and two thread-like feathers trailing from the centre of the tail.

True to its name, it lives on flying insects — bees, wasps and the like — all taken on the wing. It hunts from an open perch, darting out to snatch something mid-air in a flash of green, then swinging straight back to the same spot to deal with its catch.

Contrary to its innocent looks, this little one doesn’t think twice about smashing its prey against a hard branch or perch after catching them mid-air. This breaks the insect’s hard exoskeleton and it swallows the prey whole. Rough, right?