It happened because I went to Albania with Stephen in July. He said that with me to look over his shoulder he’d think twice about even ordering a beer.There are only two ornithologists in Albania, so prospectors are welcome. You can get a feel for what’s out there by checking the market stalls in Shkodër, assuming you can identify birds without hearing their calls or songs, or seeing them stand up, or fly, or with their feathers on.Organizing the hunters might have helped save habitats. But in Albania only the foreign investors were organized. The Moraca Gorge, for instance, was slated for destruction, with hydroelectric turbines that would theoretically (or rather: impossibly) churn through more water than is in all of Lake Scutari’s tributaries combined. Birke would have been ranting a blue streak. But Stephen just sat there, motionless by the river for days, counting birds on feeding flights. Then he sat by the lake and counted birds in the littoral zone the dam project will eliminate.
