Merops philippinus, commonly known as the Blue-tailed Bee Eater, is a colourful bird from the order Coraciiformes and the family Meropidae. This bird is a true globe-trotter – frequently spotted from India to southern China, Indonesia, New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific Islands, especially during the migration season (Yuan et al., 2006b).
Its signature call, ‘be-rek be-rek’ or ‘re-lip re-lip’, rings through the sky and inspired its Malay name “beberek”, which mimics the bird’s call (Patra & Chowdhury, 2017). In Malaysia, it is known as “Beberek Ekor Biru”. This bird is not just beautiful but also an expert hunter. With a diet of damselflies, dragonflies, hornets, wasps, bees and other insects, it snatches its prey mid-air with breathtaking precision. The Bee Eater is a master at handling stinging insects. After snatching one, it does not eat it right away. Instead, it flies back to its perch and repeatedly smashes its prey against a branch to remove the stinger. This behaviour is a clever trick to avoid a painful meal (Fry, 2010).
The Blue-tailed Bee Eater features a bronze-green crown, a pale yellow throat, and a dull chestnut wash on the lower throat and upper breast, with a green lower breast and belly. It shows a black mask bordered by light blue lines, a mid-blue rump (upper back above the tail) and upper tail coverts, and a blue-green upper tail. Although males and females look almost identical, juveniles have a darker, more bluish-green crown and mantle (area across the upper back and shoulder), a yellowish-white upper throat, a faint chestnut breast, paler bluish underparts and lack the elongated central tail feathers (Robson, 2015).
In Malaysia, the Blue-tailed Bee Eater is a common sight throughout the country. The birds are often found in open landscapes such as dunes, beach slacks, riverbanks, farmlands and mangroves, up to 2,850 m above sea level (Robson, 2015). When it is time to raise a family, they dig nesting burrows in sparsely vegetated, sandy soils such as ponds and river banks, sand piles, and both natural and man-made cliffs (Wang et al., 2009). They avoid clay loam and prefer sandy or sandy-clay loam because the lower moisture, density and soil pressure make excavation simpler, and allow for better drainage and ventilation for the nest cavities (Yuan et al., 2006a).
Every spring, thousands of migratory Merops philippinus flock to Tanjung Tuan, Port Dickson. During migratory watch sessions in 2000-2001, researchers recorded approximately 1,353 of these birds, particularly during periods of predominant westerly winds (DeCandido et al., 2004). The good news? They are doing just fine. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the Blue-tailed Bee Eater is categorised as Least Concern (LC), with a stable population due to its adaptability to diverse habitats and abundant foraging grounds (BirdLife International, 2016).
