In 1974, carrying little more than a change of clothes and a pair of binolculars, two young Americans flew to Africa, bought a third-hand Land Rover, and drove deep into the middle of the Kalahari Desert. There they lived for 7 years, in an unexplored area with no roads, no people, and no source of water for thousands of square miles. Their chosen mission was to study large predators in the last African wilderness. They endured against innumerable odds and mis-adventures, trying to put enough of a research project together to attract funding. That they succeeded is unreal.
Birds also brighten the pages here and there.
There are many great birds in Africa, but some of the rarest and must difficult to find are just too dull or too similar to more common species to make this listing. It is only sparsely distributed in remote and usually inaccessible papyrus swamps of central east Africa. Alas it is a more ordinary bird when the pennants are molted on the winter grounds, or in females. Recently it has been proven to nest on coastal savannas of Gabon and then migrate inland to disappear far up the Congo and other major rivers. A Field Guide to Birds of the Gambia and Senegal.