While it is almost inconceivable that a bird species could to this day remain undiscovered in South Africa, an observation by a group of South Africa’s most reputable and experienced ornithologists remains intriguingly unexplained. In late May 1989, while birding near the farm Jagdrift, south of Kenhardt (see map, p.86), Dr Peter Ryan and colleagues noticed a small party of four canaries. Both the males had a neat black face with a yellow supercilium, yellow underparts, green upperparts, and pale feather edges to the folded wing. Neither of the females had black faces; they had unmarked, grey plumage, except for their throats and bellies, which were white. No southern African or African canary fits this description, and the closest contenders are birds of forest edge further north in Africa. The encounter ended better for the canaries than for the ornithologists — by the time Peter had run to fetch his shotgun from the car, the birds had fluttered out of view and into birding legend.