I want to expand on and express my appreciation of all that you did to make the China tour so fantastic and wonderful. Forgetting about the terrific scenery, mind-boggling highways, and … food, the bird observations by themselves were outstanding and doubtlessly unique. Lots and lots of very hard-to-see birds, most seen very well (Mrs. Hume’s Pheasant, for one). The fact that a person as experienced as yourself encountered 14 new species indicates how difficult many of these birds are to find. I’m still amazed when I check over the list. As always your handling of logistic details (not to mention bird IDs) was absolutely superb.
David, it was really a once in a lifetime experience, never to be forgotten.
Colin C, Canada
China 2015
I know less than nothing about the island of New Guinea, except that I’d like to go there once, por lo menos, but I do know that the recent paper by Jared Diamond and David Bishop in Bull. BOC, entitled “Avifaunas of the Kumawa and Fakfak Mountains, Indonesian New Guinea” (BBOC 135(4): 292–336), is a class read, full of interesting natural history observations and commentary on the mechanisms governing the region’s avian biogeography. Recommended to all students of the island’s birds, even in this age where many biologists seem to think we have gotten well beyond the documentary stage of our understanding of the natural world.
Guy Kirwan