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Anne Arundel Bird Club Program

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Sue Ricciardi

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Mon, 29 Dec 2008 23:22:24 +0000

The Anne Arundel County Bird Club will be hosting an exciting presentation this Friday, January 2nd, by Hank Kaestner, at our Bird Club meeting at 8:00 p.m. at Arlington Echo Environmental Education Center, Crownsville, MD.  Hank Kaestner has travelled the world as a spice merchant for McCormick and has a life list of 6,770 different species.  See the attached article from Audubon magazine, A BIRDER FOR ALL SEASONINGS. Spread the word, it should be exciting.  


Friday, January 2, 2009, 8 p.m.  Confessions of a Spice Merchant and World Class Birder.  Hank Kaestner, Life List: 6,874 Species and Counting. 
Marylander Hank Kaestner will enthrall all who attend with tales of his 53 years of birding, including as a spice merchant for McCormick to exotic destinations.  Beginning in 1955 at age 10 when he was in Mexico City visiting his grandparents, and saw a brightly colored red and black bird he identified later as a Vermillion Flycatcher, Hank became hooked on birding.  Taking Chan Robins’ advice, he found work in a job that would allow him to see many birds around the globe and saw almost all of the 6,874 species working for McCormick.  McCormick sent me to many exotic (and birdy) locations including trips looking for vanilla in Madagascar, cinnamon from Sumatra, saffron from Spain, and nutmeg from Grenada. One common thread will be the birding done with his brother Peter, whose job at the State Department resulted in his living all over the world and how Hank always found a way to meet his brother to go birding together! Peter is currently the world’s third-ranked birder (8,059 life
rs at last count), and in Colombia he discovered a new species, the Cundinamarca Antpitta (Grallaria kaestneri).

The audience for this epic journey of birding and spices will hear and see a lot about rare and exotic birds and learn a bit about spices around the world. Birds you will glimpse and hear about include the Ribbon-tailed Drongo, the Ebony Myzomela, Madagascar Blue Pigeon, Long-Tailed Ground Roller, Sind Woodpecker, Arabian Partridge, White-crested Spadebill, the São Tomé Spinetail, Pirre Bush-tanager, and the now extinct Lake Atitlan Grebe. His field work—187 trips to 127 countries, and counting—has added flavor to billions of meals and filled his Clements Birds of the World checklist with thousands of rare species. Lately it has also allowed him to create new livelihoods for farmers in developing countries, and to preserve wildlife habitat. While Hank Kaestner learned field marks at a prodigious pace, he also became an all-American lacrosse star at Johns Hopkins University. After graduation he planned to study ornithology at Cornell but instead went with McCormick in their procurem
ent division that allowed him to become a Man for All Seasonings.  Hank is working with local farmers in Sumatra and Central America for eco-sustainable practices including reviving vanilla cultivation by Maya growers in Guatemala, only in shade-grown plantations that will preserve habitat for neotropical birds.

Sue Ricciardi for Gerald Winegrad, AABC Program Chair