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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jurek" data-source="post: 3633523" data-attributes="member: 3357">Not sure which one is my favorite, but have two stories to tell.One candidate for the favorite find was not fully self-found. We were a tour group on a remote island of Principe looking for the local thrush. All birders stood in line, looking at an opening for the thrush to appear. I was the only one who realized that the bird can come from anywhere and decided to look the opposite way. Sure, the thrush flew in quietly and started looking with interest at a row of birders' backsides. Had everybody looked in the same direction it could well remained undetected. My least favorite find was when we were driving at night in Western Sahara, spotlighting for mammals. You may know how spotlighting works - you drive slowly straining your eves for any tiny glow or movement. There were lots of jerboas hopping on the road and I avoided them all. Still, I did not see a nightjar sitting in a small dip on the left-hand side of the road. It less then two seconds it took off, flew left off the road, then made an U-turn and flew back across the road - and hit the car. I stopped and hoped that maybe it made it in the last fraction of the second. Then I looked in the rear mirror and saw it dead. It turned to be a Golden Nightjar, new for the region, and subsequently led to discovery of a breeding population there. Still I would prefer the little idiot not to fly into anyones car, even if it and its mates would remain unknown to this day.</blockquote>

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