I spy the bee-eater

Brampton, Cumbria Suddenly, there it was, in elegant outline, its feathers painted with Japanese brush strokes in verdigris, amber, slate-blue, honey

It felt like an agricultural show. Lines of cars parked in a field and a blue canopy were definitely an event. Laminated signs read "Bee-eaters, this way". We followed a footpath that skirted Low Gelt sand quarry, gorse pods snapping open in the hot evening air. On the long walk in, we talked to a steel worker from Redcar, his first time travelling to see a rare breeding bird - a bird from southern Europe that fires the imagination with its rainbow colours.

The RSPB had set up a second open-sided tent on the rim of the quarry. Backed by bracken and birch saplings, a large gathering waited, their binoculars and scopes trained across a deep bowl to the far side. There was hushed chatter like a congregation waiting for a service to begin. Pink sand was sculpted into crags, bluffs and Saharan swirls, and tracks looped across the bottom where a machine had recently been working.

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