What I am interested in with birds, just as I am with spiders or monkeys, is what they do and why they do it.

The savage, rocky shores of Christmas Island, 200 miles south of Java, in the Indian Ocean. It's November, the moon is in its third quarter, and the sun is just setting. In a few hours from now, on this very shore, a thousand million lives will be launched.

I'm not an animal lover if that means you think things are nice if you can pat them, but I am intoxicated by animals.

It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It's not just climate change; it's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.

Humanity is facing a very big, slow, long, drawn-out threat, and that is to do with the way the weather is changing and the size of the population.

Nothing in the natural world makes sense - except when seen in the light of evolution

Well, I'm having a good time. Which makes me feel guilty too. How very English.