Pete and I were standing motionless on the nature trail at Danum Valley Field Centre, our ears craned and binoculars at the ready. We were on a twitch. Some friends of Pete’s had reported sensational sighting of a Giant Pitta on this trail just a month before. The Giant Pitta is high on the wanted list of every bird watcher who comes to Borneo, but at this moment it was the call of a quite different bird that we were straining to hear. The instant I heard it I recalled a similar scenario, an occasion that my father described...