An African emerald cockatoo in South Africa’s Phinda Resource Reserve.
Illustration: Bráulio Amado; Photographer: Daryl Dell
Businessweek
One Thing Most People Don’t Know About Birding, the Hot Travel Trend
You don’t start with your eyes. You start with your ears—and when you do, there’s so much you can learn.
My foray into amateur birding started with a pop song. It was 2017, and I woke up to a catchy avian rhythm outside my tent in a remote corner of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, not long after flying in from New York.
Maybe it was the jet lag, but to me, the beat had an uncanny resemblance to Mellow Yellow, the hit ’60s song by the Scottish musician Donovan. From that point, I was on a mission to name that bird.