For four years starting c.2009, Sean McCann was a British Columbian grad student earning his PhD by studying the red-throated caracara, a very smart, social, bizarre bird--a mix of falcon, parrot and raven, with a craving for wasp larvae. Redthroats enthusiastically attack huge nests of aggressive social wasps, despite the quite venomous stings. Immunity, secret wasp repellent, sheer masochism? No one knew.

The redthroat avoids humans, living only in undisturbed Latin American forests; McCann's fieldwork was deep inland in Guyana, near the plateaus Conan Doyle fictionalized in The Lost World. He found the birds maddeningly elusive (and derisive). One night, McCann dreamed:

A cloud of red-throats were descending on Vancouver, perching on maples and firs in city parks and speaking fluent English. The birds were regaling passersby with stories about their lives, and dream-Sean rushed downtown to meet them, giddy with excitement and relief. He'd been chasing them through the jungle for years, and they were finally going to tell him what he wanted to know.

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