Although the Blue-tailed Bee-eater can be classified as a very local breeding summer visitor, some mystery shrouds its true status. Blue-tailed Bee-eaters are resident throughout most of India south of our area. It is possible that most of our birds represent post-breeding dispersal from further south and that it only occasionally breeds at what is close to the northern limit of its range.

Numbers vary from year to year and it can at best be described as locally common in good years. It feeds largely on dragonflies and is thus most often seen over large water bodies, although it also favours open woodland. It is an aerial feeder, often flying so high as to be almost out of sight. It roosts in reedbeds. If it does breed it would be in long tunnels excavated in sand banks.