Edging along the dirt path through the thorn scrub forest, I could almost see the watering hole in the distance. The early morning sun was starting to warm my back, and I unzipped my lightweight jacket but did not take it off. A cisticola rattled, unseen, in the nearby weeds. My friend Neil was a few steps up the path (as usual), and already peering through his binoculars. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the dry vegetation was bathed in the golden light of an July winter morning. “I see some blesbok, and some wildebeest… and I think a Marabou Stork,” whispered Neil. Three days earlier I was packing my bags in summery Seattle. Now I was exploring the wildlands of the Nylsvley Nature Reserve in South Africa’s Limpopo province. There was a rustling through the trees, a stone’s throw distance away. I froze. Neil glanced up from his…
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