'When I am in the bush either driving around, walking or in a hide - I know from experience that at the very least one interesting thing will happen that day which I will be able to take artistic advantage of. It's uncanny! It always happens. On this particular day in 1980 I settled down into a very crude hide I had made next to a nearly dry pan in the Ngwezumba area of the Chobe National Park in Botswana. The hide was nothing like the ones you can buy nowadays. It was made by simply bending some branches into a shape that would hide my outline. It worked infinitely better than I could ever have expected because mid-morning I heard animal coming down the path leading past my hide. I couldn't see what it was but the light sound of the hooves and a clicking noise suggested that it was an eland. The mystery animal came into sight and it turned out to be a very determined looking poacher riding a donkey, with two freshly cut tusks strapped behind him and a rifle slung over his shoulder. He never saw me and I stayed quite still until he vanished into the trees on the other side of the pan. That night I moved my camp far down river.'

.