I compete with birds
When Peter Kaestner is not holding visa interviews at the US Embassy in Delhi, he prefers nurturing his ambition of spotting all the 10,000 known bird species. He has spotted 8,200 so far. He has also discovered a new bird in Colombia which is named after him. Arnab Pratim Dutta caught up with him. Excerpts:
Why did you become a bird watcher?
I remember getting exhilarated on seeing a bird when I was five. I was 10, when I went on an international bird-watching trip in 1963. My elder brother Hank took me to the Bahamas for a day. When I was 14, I took my younger brother who was 12 for three days to the Bahamas. We did not have any credit cards and not much money. We landed at the Nassau airport and decided to walk to Kingston through a mangrove, suitcases in hand. In the mangrove was a thick billed vireo, a new bird for me. I got all excited. Then a man drove up and asked, what are you guys doing? We said we were walking it to Kingston. He said you can