About 15 years ago I went on holiday to the Dominican Republic and needed a bird field guide, the best one available at the time was Birds of the West Indies by James Bond. I noted the name of the author was the same as Ian Fleming’s 007 character but considered this to be a coincidence.
In a few weeks time I will be heading to the Caribbean again and today relocated this book ready for the trip. I googled Birds of the West Indies to see if there was another more up to date field guide for this area which it turns out there is and I have ordered, but my google search made me aware of another fact. Ian Fleming was a keen bird watcher and lived in Jamaica on his estate which was named Goldeneye, he also owned this field guide by James Bond and as he later explained to his wife "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born".
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