Roger Tory Peterson, the famous ornithologist and author of so many bird guides that taught many of us everything we ever wanted to know about telling bird A from bird B had, been there. And Roger brought back the first photographs ever of the James flamlingo that were worth having. And that in itself was an interesting story and I heard it in Finland at the international conference of ornithologists from all over the world. He was introduced by the famous British ornithologist James Fisher. And Fisher went on and on about this extraordinary achievement of Peterson actually getting up there, photographing the colony and in fact, having photographed all six species of flamingos. And at that time, Roger Tory Peterson was the only man in the world who’d ever photographed all six species of flamingos as James Fisher drilled into our ears at the conference. And then as he turned the microphone over to Roger Tory Peterson, he turned back to it and said, “Of course, when you’ve seen one Flamingo, you’ve seen them all.” Which was not what Roger expected, but which all his colleagues enjoyed immensely. In any event, Roger was terribly keen that we get a collection of them and from what he told me, I was very interested in the situation with regard to James flamingos.
