Travels on the Edge: A Naturalist's Notes From the Back of Beyond

While I was on an ornithological expedition in southwestern Ecuador in 1984, a hit order was put out on our research team by the Shuar Indians who controlled the area we were exploring. Convinced that we were looking for gold and other valuables instead of birds, they ordered that we all be killed lest we tell others of our discoveries. We lived in a state of siege for a protracted period, moving our camp daily until we could flee the mountains. Our exit involved a terrifying encounter that almost cost two of us our lives.

While these and several of the other experiences I recount in the book were life-threatening, I would not have given them up for anything. The birds we saw and photographed on that trip in Ecuador, and the animals we studied on other expeditions, were all fascinating and extraordinarily beautiful. Many of them were also extremely rare, with their numbers fast declining due to poaching, habitat loss, and destructive climate change. Admiring such beauty and witnessing such loss (and in some cases, heartening revivals) helped shape the memorable career that I am happy to share in this book.