Flight is a marvellous thing. I got on a plane in London: next day I was in South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. A few days later I got on another plane, somewhat smaller – it held just four of us plus Xander the pilot – and 25 minutes later I was in North Luangwa National Park, one of just 500 visitors who make it up here every year.

It’s beautiful, remote and subtly different to the park further south. We were at Mwaleshi Bush Camp by the Mwaleshi River, which was still flowing, shallow and bubbly, even though the dry season was cruel.

I have recently finished writing a book to be called How to Fly, in which I look at every form of flight from houseflies to angels. In its pages I made a great fuss about the bateleur: a bird of prey, rather a favourite of mine and a speciality of the Luangwa Valley.

It bothered me that I hadn’t seen one yet on this trip; I hoped my luck would change now I was in the North Park. A good old sit in my hut brought 20 species of birds, but none of them a bird of prey: along with some rather excited elephants and a lone kudu bull posing under a twin-trunked winterthorn.

But it was time for tea and Compulsory Cake: and long before I had succumbed there was a bateleur in the sky on the far side of the Mwaleshi. It really is a sensational bird: adults strongly marked in black and white and appearing to have not tail whatsoever. The light was perfect; the red beak and legs glowed like coals.

Bateleurs are all-day gliders, holding their wings in a shallow V, riding the thermals in the conviction that flapping is for wimps. The taillessness makes them startlingly efficient gliders, operating on a knife-edge of control; younger birds have tails that get gradually shorter over seven years as they learn to master the tailless glide, much as children first have stabilisers on their bikes.

Flying is great, even in Economy, if you end up in the Luangwa Valley. I wonder — has anyone ever seen a bateleur without wanting to be one?

 

• I was co-leading a trip with wildlifeworldwide.com

Next trip www.wildlifeworldwide.com/group-tours/walking-safari-in-heart-of-zambia