The White-throated Bee-Eater in Liberia!

Length: 19-21 cm (7.5-8.3") + streamers up to 12 cm (4.7").
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In January of 2007, when my wife Paula and I were in Liberia for a short two-week visit, we stopped by the old home place near Charlie Town in River Cess County where my family had once lived and where I had grown up.
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Sadly our house was gone, having been completely destroyed during the civil war; all that remained was this rather untidy "mound" of overgrown rubble, surrounded by a small clearing and then the secondary rain forest. Still, the air was filled with the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of a West African dry season, and these brought back a flood of pleasant childhood memories. For example...

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Resting silently on a leafless branch of the old “rubber tree” in the “front yard” was this watchful White-throated Bee-Eater (Merops albicollis). Periodically it would sally out to snatch an unwary insect from the air, then return to its perch to consume its snack and wait for another tidbit to come by. I figured I would have enough time to set up my tripod and camera to take a few digiscoped shots (Jan 06/07)!

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During the dry season, the White-throated Bee-Eater is an abundant non-breeding visitor to Liberia (and to the other rain forest and moist savanna zones of West Africa). During Liberia's rainy season (May-Oct), it migrates northward to the southern edge of the Sahara Desert where it breeds.

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The rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), despite its tropical environment, is deciduous, dropping all its leaves for a brief week or two during the dry season. With only a few red leaves still clinging to this tree here and there, my view of the bee-eater was unobscured and taking these pictures was easy! (Natural rubber is a major export from Liberia, with several companies operating very large plantations of this tree.)