Ye Ye clutched my arm and whispered fiercely. I grasped for the binoculars and trained them at where I thought he was pointing. A mess of foliage and branch loomed through the lenses. Something fluttered and disappeared swiftly across my sights. It might have been a bird. It might have been an errant leaf. I turned to Ye Ye. He was squinting up at the trees about five metres to the left of where I had been looking.

‘The white-throated fantail!’

Ye Ye always prefixed the birds with ‘the’ instead of ‘a’. This both matched his enthusiasm and bolstered my sense of occasion. Ye Ye identified them all. He was a patient, ardent guide. Only nineteen, he had been birdwatching since he came up to his father’s knee. In Kalaw, this small Myanmar town, he was regarded as a child prodigy. He dreamed of becoming an ornithologist. Recognising each chirrup and squawk, he sent his finger darting around the Merlin Bird ID app to play back the songs for my benefit.

• Tags: Bertie Alexander Lawson, Issue 25, Myanmar