We were fortunate to witness the following vignette one day. I noticed a bee-eater on the side of the road and stopped to see if it had caught something. I then noticed that it was busy constructing a nest in the side of the road. Whilst I was busy taking photos of this process, my wife followed the pair as they interacted in the tree right next to us.

The male only spent short periods on the ground (roughly 5 seconds) before flying off to the tree. I suspect it is to guard against predators catching it. It was also interesting to note that the bird took off in a different direction every time (see addendum - no good photos though!).