Green Bee Eaters for Photographers..?

The internet is full of pictures of Green Bee Easters . Yet, when I saw this double I thought waiting a while was worthwhile.

I captured the above image of Green Bee Eaters/ Little Green Bee Eaters (Merops orientalis) recently during a visit to Yala National Park.

These richly coloured, slender bodied, pointed winged, sparrow like birds are quite interesting to all photographers in general, and to those who are trying to get in to bird photography in particular...

To start with these little birds are richly coloured, they are very common and have a high threshold for tolerating approaching humans. More often than not they perch on twigs and branches at eye level or below the eye level giving interesting angles to photograph them. Once they perch on a branch, they zero in on their prey, go for a zig zag flight, catches the insect and come back to the same perch giving brilliant opportunities to focus, compose, follow and capture them from a much closer distance than many other bird species.

If you are a photographer starting out on bird photography they are great little birds to practise many capturing and behavioural skills as a photographer even if you don't own super telephoto lenses.