This is my last Cape buffalo, taken in 1975 in Kenya. A local herdsman told us that the old boy liked to take a siesta every day in a clump of bushes he could lead us to. I was stationed on one side of the bushes, standing on a rock ledge overlooking the potential action.

The boys started throwing rocks and yelling from the other side and the old boy came out as though shot from a cannon. I managed to empty the magazine on my .505, four shots. He stopped so suddenly that his nose plowed up the dirt. A post mortem revealed three of the four bullet holes in the right shoulder, in a group which could be covered with a playing card. Why the recoil didn't knock me off my perch I'll never know.