The last known photo of the slender-billed curlew, a grayish-brown migratory waterbird, was taken in February 1995 at Merja Zerga, on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. There will likely never be another one.

The last known photo of the slender-billed curlew, a grayish-brown migratory waterbird, was taken in February 1995 at Merja Zerga, on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. There will likely never be another one.

At the annual Global BirdFair – held this year in Rutland – you always bump into old friends, and besides, I had a book to publicise. And there was the conservationist Martin Davies – and I was very ...