That Lucky Snap - 4

The quality of this picture isn't good but I excuse myself for two reasons: firstly, the photo was taken through glass, from the dining room of the lodge in Namibia at which we were staying, and secondly because I was so excited I could hardly hold the camera still.

The animal which has come in the heat of the day to drink at Erongo's waterhole is a mongoose, a very unusual black mongoose.

Black isn't a particularly advantageous colour for an animal which can be active in the midday, both from the point of view of the colour's absorption of heat and from its visibility, yet the black mongoose (Galerella nigrata), a subspecies of the slender mongoose, seems to be thriving in the area.

The reason for my excitement was less in seeing a fairly unusual species but more in that I had just started to write my second published novel, which was called Black Mongoose, the cover of which subsequently featured a picture of an animal just like this one.

The mongoose didn't tarry long. I never saw another, none of the five or so photos I took were any good, and the novel was a literary flop.