LordBooth Photography

A bird on a stick. But what a bird.

This is the exceptionally rare and illusive wild Congo Peafowl. So rare it wasn’t even known to science until 1934. After a failed Central African okapi expedition Dr James Chaplin noticed some unique but unidentifiable feathers in the local Congolese headdresses. He wouldn’t be able to identify these feathers until he found two taxidermy specimens mislabeled as Indian peacocks in a French museum. It wasn’t until 1955 that he was able to find and record living specimens in the Central African Congo rainforest.

Locals of course had known of them for generations but have since poached them into near extinction. Between the remoteness of their limited habitat range and near eradication, there are very few outsiders on the planet that have seen them.

Due to the sustained conservation efforts by Jef Dupain, the Antwerp Zoo, and Tetsuya Sakamaki’s research team, Lomako is one of the few places left on the planet where these peafowls can still be seen. We were lucky enough to hear them call most nights from camp. One morning on the way to the bonobos we found this lone male roosting on his evening perch. Not a great photo on my part but what an Incredibly special sighting.

Images possible by expedition possible by and