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You take your time lining up the shot and pulling the trigger. The report booms, shattering the Cretaceous calm. The elderly hadrosaur proves to have more life in it than you thought. It struggles up, tail thrashing, bellowing. Many other duckbills draw together, clacking and hissing and glowering at you. The juveniles dive between them to reach the relative safety of the center of the herd. Younger duckbills throw themselves into their nests, burrowing deep beneath heaps of rotting vegetation.

You and Brett back off and wait behind some sizable cycads. It takes a good while for the herd to settle down. None of them will look at, let alone go near, their fallen friend. Eventually, you creep out and take a few surreptitious photos of yourself with your trophy to prove you did it.

It's getting late. Your adventure with the hadrosaurs took so much time that now you really need to find somewhere to camp—definitely not in the wretched marsh, and preferably not smack-dab in the middle of a game trail. At last, you manage to locate a well-drained open area near a freshwater stream where you can make a quick getaway in the Land Rover if need be.

That evening, sitting by the campfire with Brett, you review today's events. No, not everything went precisely according to plan, but nonetheless, the best thing about today was: