I don't think I've ever read a book more in need of an editor. Rather than try to explain, I'll just copy a typical paragraph.

After we returned to Santiago, the group went with Greg Lasley to look for the Diademed Sandpiper-Plover that Rose, Peter, and I had seen before the trip. Meanwhile, we three drove to Isla Negra, Pablo Neruda's seaside home, with Rose's friend, Isabel Letelier. Isabel's husband was Orlando Letelier, the foreign minister in the administration of Salvador Allende. After the coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, she and her husband escaped Chile and went to Washington DC, where her husband was assassinated by a car bomb. Once we arrived at Isla Negra, we toured Pablo Neruda's home, which faces the sea. Neruda liked to say that his house was like the country of Chili—long and narrow. it was filled with objects that he had collected: seashells, art, and even a stuffed horse that he had acquired when he was a little boy. After the tour, we had lunch in the Restaurant of the Poet. As we sat outdoors on a beautiful sunny afternoon, Isabel told us stories about her friendship with Pablo Neruda.

Random people not mentioned before or again, name dropping, extraneous facts that are uninteresting, frequent jumps from one topic to another, and very little about birds. This was pretty much the whole book.

Here's my favorite gem: We also saw the Golden-fronted Leafbird, a bright green bird with an orange forehead about the size of a mockingbird.

That's a really large forehead.