Exotic bee-eater returns to UK for second summer in a row | Birds

With plumage cherry red, ultramarine, turquoise and yellow, usually found streaking like multicoloured darts across the skies of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Spain, they present as an epitome of tropical glamour.

British birdwatchers are aflutter to have found European bee-eaters swooping and burrowing in a disused quarry in Norfolk for the second summer in a row.

The bee-eaters have come back to nest in the same site in Britain for a second consecutive year for the first time. But excitement at the exotic visitors’ return has been tempered by a warning it is a clear signal of the planet’s changing climate.

“Bee-eaters have generally turned up in the UK on a very ad hoc basis, so far never reusing the same nest site twice,” said Mark Thomas of the RSPB.

“Their return is a vivid reminder of the changes being wrought by our overheating planet. Bee-eaters are a species found commonly in the southern Mediterranean and northern Africa, and as our planet warms they – along with other species – are being pushed further north.”

The three bee-eaters, including a nesting pair, were spotted in a sand quarry near Cromer, north Norfolk. Observers anticipate more might yet join them. Last year eight bee-eaters took up residence at the same location, where they hatched and fledged chicks before returning south.

Formerly very rare breeders in the UK, this year marks the seventh breeding attempt in England in the past 20 years, which experts have said suggests they are attempting to establish a regular breeding colony in the UK, a clear impact of climate change.

As well as bees, they feed on dragonflies and other flying insects, which they catch in mid-air.

The birds are expected to remain in the area until the end of summer, after which they will fly to southern Africa for the winter.