- Peter Kaestner
Peter G. Kaestner is an American
diplomat and amateurornithologist currently serving as the consul general of the American Embassy inNew Delhi ,India . As consul general, he oversees consular operations in New Delhi and the U.S. Consulates Generals in Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras) and Calcultta.Born in
Baltimore, Maryland , Kaestner entered the Foreign Service in 1981, and has been assigned in the past toIndia ,Egypt ,Brazil ,Guatemala ,New Guinea , theSolomon Islands ,Colombia ,Malaysia , andNamibia . An avidbirder , he has taken advantage of his position as an international diplomat to follow his hobby more avidly than is normally possible. By 1986, he had become the first birder to see a representative of each bird family in the world, though the list of bird families recognized by science has changed considerably since then. In 1989, while on a birding expedition in Colombia, he discovered a species new to science, theCundinamarca Antpitta ("Grallaria kaestneri"). ("See"Formicariidae .)With a life list above 8,000 birds, Kaestner remains one of the most prolific birders in the world, surpassed only by very few, such as
Phoebe Snetsinger .References
* Koeppel, Dan. "To See Every Bird On Earth: A Father, A Son, and a Lifelong Obsession", (Penguin: 2005). ISBN 1-59463-001-1
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