The Rainbow Bee-Eater is a spectacular bird. With its green, blue, chestnut and yellow plumage, its slim build, slender curved bill and distinctive streamers that extend from the end of its tail, it is simply beautiful. Bee-Eaters are a familiar sight in many lightly-timbered parts of mainland Australia, where they often perch on fence-posts or overhead wires, then launch after flying insects, flying swiftly, sometimes with rapid twists and turns, before snapping the insect in its bill, and returning to the perch to eat it. The Rainbow Bee-eater occurs mainly in open forests and woodlands, shrublands, and in various cleared or semi-cleared habitats, including farmland and areas of human habitation. The Rainbow Bee-eater mainly feeds on insects - bees, wasps, beetles, moths, butterflies, damselflies, dragonflies, flies, ants and bugs and will occasionally eat earthworms, spiders and tadpoles. They capture most of its prey in flight, from the ground and foliage and has occasionally been seen to snatch items from below the surface of rivers and dams. The Rainbow Bee-eater usually beats its prey items against a perch before consuming. Bees and wasps are handled using a method called bee-rubbing, where the sting of the bee or wasp is removed or rendered ineffective to prevent injury to the bee-eater. The only actual, identified threat to the Rainbow Bee-eater is the introduced Cane Toad (Bufo marinus). Cane Toads reduce the breeding success of the Rainbow Bee-eater by feeding on eggs and especially nestlings and usurping and occupying nesting burrows. The nesting burrows of the Rainbow Bee-eater are vulnerable because the entrance is located on the ground or in banks or slopes (which the toad is capable of climbing). As the adult bee-eaters appear not to recognize the Cane Toad as a potential threat, they usually do not attempt to evict intruders from their nesting burrows. (Source: Department of the Environment, 2019.), (Image: David Kleinert ).