Peter Kaestner

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Peter G. Kaestner is an American diplomat and amateur ornithologist currently serving as the consul general of the American Embassy in New Delhi, India. As consul general, he oversees consular operations in New Delhi and the U.S. Consulates Generals in Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras) and Calcultta.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Kaestner entered the Foreign Service in 1981, and has been assigned in the past to India, Egypt, Brazil, Guatemala, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Colombia, Malaysia, and Namibia. An avid birder, he has taken advantage of his position as an international diplomat to follow his hobby more avidly than is normally possible. By 1986, he had become the first birder to see a representative of each bird family in the world, though the list of bird families recognized by science has changed considerably since then. In 1989, while on a birding expedition in Colombia, he discovered a species new to science, the Cundinamarca Antpitta (Grallaria kaestneri). (See Formicariidae.)

With a life list above 8,000 birds, Kaestner remains one of the most prolific birders in the world, surpassed only by very few, such as Phoebe Snetsinger.