Exploring Nature: World’s Best B
irder
Peter Kaestner has achieved a very rare distinction. On Feb. 9 of this year, he saw an orange- tufted spiderhunter, a bird he spotted on a trip to the Philippines.
That bird was number 10,000, which meant Kaestner has seen more birds than any other person on earth. He is now in the Guinness Book of World Records as the first person to see a representative of every bird family in the world.
Wow.
For 36 years, as a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service, Kaestner was posted all over the world, including Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Columbia, India, the Solomon Islands, Brazil. Guatemala, Namibia and Germany.
In all those places, he was a serious birder who took every opportunity to seek out new avian sightings.
Then, after retiring from his diplomatic duties, he became a part-time birding tour leader with Rockjumper Tours.
He rated his most difficult sighting to be a blue-bearded helmetcrest, a bird found in the mountains of Columbia. It took 24 hours of climbing from about 5000 feet up to 14,000 feet and then back. It required three and a half days in all.
While living in Columbia, the diplomat discovered an entirely new bird, the cundinarca antpitta — which is scientifically named grallaria Kaestneri in his honor.
What countries does Kaestner most recommend as birding destinations? Columbia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Africa, Australia and India.
I have looked for birds in four of these countries — Ecuador, Costa Rica, Africa and Australia.
But I am nowhere near his astounding record for sightings. Of course, there are some 11,000 bird species in the world, so even he still has a few to seek out.
