Alexander Lees is a Senior Lecturer in Biodiversity at Manchester Metropolitan University, a Lab Associate of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and serves on both the British Ornithologists' Union Records Committee (BOURC) and the Brazilian Ornithological Records Committee (CBRO). Alex has written over one hundred academic papers in addition to many popular ornithology articles, and his research focuses primarily on understanding how birds respond to environmental change, particularly in the Amazon where he has been working for the last 17 years. Alex now lives in the Derbyshire Peak District, arguably not the finest place to find vagrants, but hasn't given up hope yet.