Friday 6/18, Ed Newbold writes:

<< Dear Tweeters,
Hey Richard, Or you could fly over to Puerto Maldonado and go up the
Tambopata
to Amazonas Lodge or Explorers Inn. We saw veery, eastern wood pewee, red
eyed vireo, yellow billed cuckoo and Broad winged Hawk there plus a few
Peruvian birds if I recall. I thought our guide John Rowlett was your
brother
but I guess not. >>

Nice list of birds there Ed, and they'd all be NEW ones on my Peruvian list
:-))

I don't know whether it's in my best interest to make a general statement
about this or not; ...or just let the curiosity and mystique linger on
forever. The name 'Rowlett' is unusual enough, much less be one shared by a
bunch of birders who've been around for a long long time. This has been
going on for 30+ years; every year I get dozens of queries from people asking
and I suspect there are some among you who haven't asked yet are wondering if
we are related; brother, sister, wife, cousin, etc.

In a nutshell, I am in no way related to John or Rose Ann Rowlett. In fact I
have neither ever met or communicated either. Both have been leading tours
for decades; some of you no doubt have enjoyed their expertise.

It's strange enough to have a clan of rather busy birders sharing the
'Rowlett' name. An even more confusing irony is Rose Ann 'daring' to share
the same initials as *me* -- RAR. What are the odds of that? Way, way back
once-upon-a-time (30 years ago) and in a galaxy far far away (the East
Coast), I remember being the unwitting cause of all sorts of confused
excitement soon after I'd arrived on the scene there and essentially unknown
by routinely posting my bird sightings in the visitors/sightings log at some
of my favorite birding haunts e.g. Brigantine NWR (New Jersey), Chincoteague
NWR (Virginia), Pea Island NWR (North Carolina), and others, and always
signing the log, R.A. Rowlett. For a long time and maybe even to this day, a
lot of people thought "Wow! the renown birding tour leader, Rose Ann Rowlett
at Brigantine, etc..."

So anyway, that's the scoop. The next time you see R. A. Rowlett posted or
referenced somewhere, I guess you will never really know for sure. Such is
life and the 'mystique' of the Rowlett birding clan.

Richard Rowlett (Pterodroma at aol.com)
Bellevue (Eastgate), WA