There is actually an exhibit at their museum in D.C. right now about birds of paradise (and it's really cool). 
Awesome! I loved reading those articles, and looking at the photographs. I think I'd like the job of a National Geo photographer...most of the time.
...until some uber poisonous death beetle from Hades crawled up your pants. It's bad enough when ticks do that to me around here, so as much as I'd love to take the outdoor photography to exotic frontiers, I'm sure I'd die. 
Yeah. That's why you wear you pants tucked into your boots. It looks stupid, but it keeps the nasty buggers out.
Only the bigger ones. In the spring time, those freshly hatched deer ticks get right through most fabrics and every single tiny crack anywhere/ever. 
True. YIKES! I know! And then there are the mosquitoes and poison oak, and rattlesnakes here...and yellowjackets, and bald-faced hornets, and spiders.
LOL! YES, EEEEE!! Although I don't mind the rattlers...I tend to seek them out. 
Well, ours are mutating with other species out east, so antivenoms are no longer effective on some bites. Look out. Where there are rattlers there's all the other stuff too!