Prince Charles goes bird watching with Rick

OK, that is actually Dick De Boers, a Dutchman who looks strikingly like Prince Charles. He was a great sport and even provided the royal wave for a pose with Rick. Dick and his wife Marion were great fun to be with, and they confirm our assertion in earlier travel logs that no matter where we go, the most wonderful people we meet turn out to be Dutch.


We were at a cloud-forest reserve named Bellavista, which has a huge variety of tropical birds, including Andean tucans and 100's of species of hummingbirds. In addition to unusual birds, we also brushed up against the somewhat bizarre culture of competitive bird watching. While most bird watchers are, like us, simply appreciators of nature, there is a segment of hard-core "birders" or "twitchers" for whom the all-important part of bird watching is merely glancing at a a bird so that the name of the bird can be recorded in the watcher's "Book of Life."


Competitive bird watching includes star guides, who are rated on the Internet for their ability to spot rare birds for their clients. According to an ornithologist with whom we had lunch, this all creates a high-stakes money environment, in which star guides will actually damage the environment around them in order to score the right bird.

On the right is Gary with a ´Tutu flower ´ in the cloud forest.