The rollers are an Old World family, Coraciidae, of near passerine birds. The group gets its name from the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. Roller birds resemble crows in size and build, and share the colorful appearance of kingfishers and bee-eaters - blues and pinkish or cinnamon browns predominating. The two inner front toes are connected, but not the outer one.
The roller is a very beautiful bird, which some ornithologists claim is the most beautiful of all European birds. It is a solitary bird, quite difficult to observe since it is not very common. Despite its brightly colored feathers, it can easily hide itself among the foliage and its discreet way of life enables it to remain largely unseen. It is also a migratory bird.
The roller bird provides our fauna with an exotic element and its coloring will give any nature lover a distinct shock when first seen. To see it perched, with its rather angular appearance, it is hard to believe that it is a real acrobat in the air. It can climb vertically and then drop like a stone with wings closed until it is close to the ground. The rare spectacle of a pair of roller birds in mating display is unforgettable. Sometimes, several couples gather to parade together but this phenomenon hardly ever occurs in Northern countries, where the bird is rare and exists only in isolated specimens.
The roller's diet is varied but consists principally of all kinds of insects, which it snatches in flight with the adroitness of a bee-eater. The nest site is usually in a cavity that either formed naturally in a tree or from a hole that was pre-drilled by a woodpecker. Below, is an example of one the specimens from the roller family:
Image Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lilac-breasted_roller.jpg
This next image is a more brilliant photo of a Lilac Breasted Roller:
Yeah, that bird is definitely styling and profiling. Ha!
Image Credit: Lilac Breasted Roller - Most Beautiful Bird in The World - Charismatic Planet (By the way, this last image credit appears to be linking to a high-quality website. I may need to re-visit that place when I get a chance because they seem to have loads of interesting content that is not limited to one particular genre. When I checked the image source originally, I was expecting a Nature & Wildlife blog, but diversity is always a good thing, for sure.)
---End of Post "Roller Bird"
---End of Post "Roller Bird"
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