I’m always the first up, drinking my rooibos tea by the river waiting for the carmines to rise. The sun, too, though that wouldn’t be quite as bright. I was at Takwela Camp, which stands on the banks of the Luangwa River in Zambia; just opposite was the confluence with the Mwaleshi and just below was a colony of carmine bee-eaters.

One carmine bee-eater might be the most beautiful bird you will ever see in your life, but you’re not very likely to see one. You’re more likely to see a couple of thousand. As the sun got up our guests came to join me – and so did the carmines.

Let me try and describe one. The main colour is clearly unnatural, like that of the cherryade I used sometimes to drink in pubs when my parents wished to keep me quiet. The second colour, found on the cap and what we ornithologists call the bum, is a retina-hurting blue, a shade I remember the women wearing around Dal Lake in Kashmir.

Add to that a sleek, slim build, pointed wings, a neat slightly decurved bill and a single elegant streamer that flows from the tail, and you have as fine a bird that has ever taken wing. They fly in neat curves and glides, hawking for insects as they do so. Got it? Now multiply by 2,000.

After breakfast we were to take a walk on the far side of the river. Alex Phiri, guide and camp manager, took the boat directly underneath the colony before we got there: a thousand or so holes in three or four parallel lines in the sheer bank on the river.

It looked like the side of a sailing ship, a man-o’-war about to fire a broadside: but instead of cannonballs we had a cannonade of carmines: a massive explosion of colour as all the birds came out at once. I was wondering, perhaps a trifle fancifully, if this wasn’t like being transported into the vaults of heaven when I felt a soft blow above my left eye. One of the angels had shat on the brim of my hat.

• I was co-leading a trip with Wildlife Worldwide https://www.wildlifeworldwide.com/discover/zambia