European bee-eater at Broken Bridge

My son Shreyas Ramanan and I were at the Broken Bridge on the morning of October 11, a Sunday. I spotted a pair of Green bee-eaters perched on a twig. After snapping a photograph, I noticed that the bird on the right looked slightly distinct. I showed the photo to Shreyas, who excitedly noted that it could possibly be a European bee-eater.

As we were taking more photos, we called over fellow birders Bharath Ravikumar and Balakrishnan, who were also nearby. Although the bird flew away just as they arrived, it returned to the branch several minutes later, allowing us to take a few more photos. It then made a couple of sorties to hunt bees before we confirmed that it was a juvenile European bee-eater. Eventually, the bird flew toward the Adyar River Estuary and disappeared from view.

We submitted our observation to eBird, where it was subsequently reviewed and accepted. This marks the first recorded sighting of a European Bee-eater in Chennai—a migratory species typically wintering in and around Coimbatore, Tirupur and Salem in Tamilnadu.

On the same day, we also spotted a Euroasian wryneck, another rare species. The wryneck gets its name from its bizarre, snake-like threat display: it elongates and writhes its neck, turns its head nearly 180 degrees from side to side, and produces a loud hissing noise to startle predators into thinking a dangerous snake is lurking inside the tree cavity.

(R.V. Ramanan is a member of Madras Naturalists Society and a birder)