‘It connected us to something bigger, putting our issues into perspective and brought a magic sense of wonder into being alive’ … Sean Dooley recalls the magic of a white-plumed honeyeater’s appearance. Photograph: ck/Cheng Kang For a long time, I thought that I and my fellow obsessive twitchers were the only ones for whom birds made life worth living. The sheer delight birds brought to my life was both the remedy for – and perhaps instigator of – the social awkwardness of my teen years.