This picture demonstrates that bee-eaters eat insects other than bees. This one is eating a dragonfly.
The black throat-band indicates the bird on the left is adult. The short tail-streamers suggest that it is female. The lack of tail-streamers and lack of black on the throat on the two other birds suggests that they are immature.
Rainbow Bee-eater
Scientific name: Merops ornatus
Merops is Greek for bee-eater. Ornatus is Latin for ornate.
Birinbirin (beer’in’beer’in).
Widespread on mainland Australia.
This bird is about 19 centimetres long with a wingspan up to 34 centimetres. The central tail-streamers add another 2-5 centimetres to the length of male birds and 1-2 centimetres to females.
The tail-streamers can become damaged while the birds are nesting. The nest is an underground chamber at the end of a tunnel that can be 1 metre long.
The furthest distance recorded by the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme for this species of bird to travel is 18km. The oldest bird recorded was still alive when its band was read in July 2005, 4 years 7.1 months after being banded (information as at 20 June 2012).
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Various contributors.
What Bird is That? Neville W Cayley. 1978
Aboriginal names of bird species in south-west Western Australia, with suggestions for their adoption into common usage. Ian Abbott. 2009. Conservation Science Western Australia Journal. Volume 7 No 2 https://library.dbca.wa.gov.au/Journals/080559/080559-07.015.pdf
Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/science/abbbs/abbbs-search.html
Atlas of Living Australia https://bie.ala.org.au/species/https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/9f9ddea7-8c74-46df-8ed9-3233d681e354