If I had to be anything then it was to be an ornithologist. Some birds were made for poems. Humming birds for the soothesayers, weaver birds for the craftsmen, Keats had his nightingale and Poe had his raven. The European bee-eater's life is more like an epic novel, sprawling across continents, teeming with familial intrigue, theft, danger, chicanery and flamboyant beauty. Reading articles and watching documentaries on birds shades the world in unparalleled hue.
