Description
Observing some activity of Rainbow Bee Eaters, hard to miss the sudden burst of beautiful colours from this bird, I decided to focus on what seemed to be a pair. They were flying around catching a variety of flying insects, then fleetingly back to a branch to eat their catch. Amazingly, although immune to the stings of bees, to protect themselves from the bee’s poison sac, they close their eyes and remove the sac by rubbing it against a tree branch. Pairs both dig a long narrow burrow, which can be over a meter long with a nesting chamber at the end, usually constructed in sandy banks or flat bare ground. Here I have painted the pair I had observed, showing the male offering his mate its prize catch, with sting already removed. This painting is done in pastel to show their soft but glowing feathers, keeping the background simple and clean so as to show the interaction of the offering.
Open Edition Reproduction
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