Christmas in the bush

I have had another quiet week in terms of research, as it was Christmas. Jennifer went across and stayed at Dog Camp so that she could go out with the researchers there and see carnivores.

I did some office work and had a bit of a break. On Christmas Eve the HQ posse drove across to Dog Camp to sing Christmas carols. Unfortunately they were mostly asleep by the time we made it across, although we did see a civet on the way. We woke some of them up and spread Christmas cheer.

On Christmas day I chatted to my parents for a while and had a lovely brunch with Keren and Duncan. I then headed out to the Gomoti, where Dog Camp were having a braai. I spent a couple of hours with them by the river, before coming back to camp around sunset to help prepare a beautiful roast dinner. It was a lovely Christmas altogether, and I can only hope that those of you who celebrate it enjoyed it as much as I did.

Wet season sampling

I went out with Jennifer for 2 nights last week to collect samples from three of my collared buffalo. We went across to the eastern side of NG34 to find Chanel, who was in a small herd (fewer than 100) in relatively thick vegetation. We followed them for a little while and managed to get a bit of population dynamics data from the herd, as well as faecal samples. We then left them and collected vegetation samples from sites used by that and other herds. We camped the first night in some lovely tall open mopane woodland, a bit close to the main Sankuyo road, but far enough that we could only just hear the cars on it. I thought it was going to rain, but only a few drops fell, so we escaped unscathed.

The next morning we started sampling again. After the first sample we were sitting in the car working out which to do next when two duiker ran in front of us, completely ignoring my car, and headed straight for the main road, narrowly avoiding an oncoming truck. It was the best sighting of duiker that I have had here, although I see them so rarely that at first I was not sure what they were!

We went across into NG43 and continued to sample vegetation sites. We bumped into a buffalo herd on the road, which turned out to be Nokya's herd. That herd was fairly large, and again we had to follow them for a while until they stopped in a relatively open area so that I could count them.

NG43 is almost a magical concession, since most points used by the buffalo are close to a road, even though I have not mapped all of the roads yet. Some points that I decided to leave because the vegetation was too dense, I found roads running straight to not long after. Only twice did I have to drive around 1 km off the road to reach points.

I found two more buffalo herds, one without a collared animal in it, the other with both Lasanya and Vice in it. The last was a big herd, although of course the dense vegetation makes it very difficult to estimate herd size. Following them for a while and looking at the density of tracks and faeces helps with the process, but I cannot be anywhere near as sure as I was during the flooding seasons.

We finished on Saturday morning and since we were going back past the area in which Guy and I found Barros last week, I thought that we would have a look for him. We found him about 200m from the previous location, relaxing by himself.

Lion tracking

I have not had a very eventful week in terms of research. I have been making a gap between the seasons to make sure that the buffalo have been feeding for a while on the new growth before I sample from them. I am planning to go out this week. We have had a good deal of rain over the last few days, with 75 mls on Friday night. We did spot a lovely African wild cat that posed nicely for some photos.

Last week I went out with Guy as he was going to track lions in an area that I knew some of my collared buffalo were in and I wanted to see if I could pick up any of the non-satellite collars. I got signals for the 2 satellite collars in the area, as well as for Vice, which is one that I had not heard from in a while. I did not see Vice, but had a very strong signal when we saw a fairly big herd next to the road, very close to where we found Barros the lion with another male, a female and two 4-6 month old cubs, which was quite exciting. They were all looking rather fat, so I hope that they do not decide to pick on any collared buffalo!

Post-migration sampling

I came into camp on Wednesday with Jennifer (my new assistant) and we went out to do some fieldwork that afternoon, so her first night in the bush was spent fly-camping. We did hear lions, hyaena and jackal, but she reacted very well and managed to sleep fine. We stopped off on the way back from sampling to see Binti, one of the collared cheetahs who was just off the road we were taking. Jennifer has wanted to see a cheetah for a long time, so she was very happy! We later saw Krystal with her cubs feeding on a zebra carcass.

We were collecting samples from some of the migration points and then the post-migration points. We did some sampling near Kazakini hunting camp, then headed across into NG43, into the mopane and grasslands there. We saw lots of evidence that buffalo were around, with tracks and faeces everywhere. I got a signal from the satellite collared animal that I knew was there, but not from any of the others. We did not go to find her, as I am trying to leave a gap of a couple of weeks between the end of last season and the beginning of this season. I want to be sure that the buff have been in the wet season area for a couple of weeks before I record population dynamics data, as any changes between seasons will not happen overnight. We did see a herd, which was nice to show Jennifer, but I left them to wander off through the lovely dense vegetation that I had started to forget about during the past few months that I spent in floodplains.

Albino lechwe

Last week I said goodbye to Shavaughn, who was with me for six months. She got off fine, though she was quite sad to leave.

I borrowed a friend to come and help me collect data last weekend from the area used by two of my collared animals before they migrated. It was a good couple of days and we managed to get all the samples that I wanted. The area we were in was very easy to drive around, and although there were some nasty wet patches, these were clearly visible by the bright green grasses growing in them, so we managed to avoid them.

We had a couple of encounters with elephants, with a breeding herd at our first sample point that came to investigate us, but they were just curious and soon went on their way. A few lone bulls came past our tents both nights, but again showed no aggression. We had lions roaring and hyaenas calling both nights and saw several jackal pairs. We also saw the albino lechwe that I saw several months ago, which seems to be doing well.

I took my friend back to town and waited to pick up my new assistant, Jennifer, who arrived on Air Botswana yesterday. We are planning on going out this afternoon for a couple of nights to finish off the migration data collection, which is a bit of a sudden immersion for her, but I need to get to those sample sites as soon as possible.

Fatty the lion

Last week Shavaughn and I followed the path taken by Bambi and Chanel from the floodplains to the mopane. We sampled several sites along the Gomoti and managed to drive all the way along to the fence. Unfortunately, there was a very wet and sticky backwater there that thwarted our best attempts to get across. We had to go back upriver until we hit a road and then drive all the way around to the gate and along the fence. That lost us a couple of hours, but we made it all the way along the fence and into mopane before camping on the second night. There were a couple of sites along the route that we could not access, but we managed to sample the majority of them. The next day we sampled points that they had used in the area that they reach, on the eastern side of NG34, close to the hunting camp. We had to give up on reaching the last couple of points as they had disappeared into really thick stuff. We did manage to sample 44 sites in 3 days, which is the most that I have done so far!

We only saw one buffalo on that trip, which was a juvenile that was being eaten by the fattest young male lion that I have ever seen. As we headed for home, we came across 3 female lions and 8 cubs, just at the right time of day to be able to watch all the cubs playing, which was really delightful.

We spent one night in camp and then headed across to Chitabe the next day for another 2 nights camping. We stopped off at Chitabe to say hello and they were very interested in all our goings on. Apparently they can ID 24 leopards in their area and are working on a photo database for them, which is impressive news that I have passed onto Dog Camp.

We somehow managed to avoid any serious downpours, which was a blessing, but I have still ended up with a nasty cold.

Two more of my collared animals, again in one herd, moved across to NG43 yesterday. Shavaughn is leaving on Thursday and my next assistant (Jennifer) is arriving on the 2nd, so I will be itching to go by then.

Bambi migrates

I have not been able to do any fieldwork this week, as I have had to write my first year report and deal with immigration issues. These have now been sorted for the next 3 months.

The rains have caused two of my collared buff (in one herd) to move away from the floodplains. They walked almost 30 km in 11 hours, pretty much in a straight line, and followed the buffalo fence for some of it. They have stopped in NG34 and then split up. I have attached a map of the movement pattern in the last couple of weeks. They walked on the evening of the 12th November.

Unfortunately one of these, collar 74, which is one of the original collars, seems to be experiencing difficulties similar to those that the collar 77 had in April, when I had to take it off and send it back for repair. I have emailed the collar company to see whether there is anything that they can do, but they may well tell me the same thing as last time. Needless to say, this is not good news, but the collar does appear to have started working properly again

I will go out tomorrow for a few days and follow the path taken by the herd, sampling sites from the area that they left, all along the path that they walked and in the area where they chose to stop.

Darting Casey

Earlier this week Shavaughn and I popped up along the Gomoti to get a few samples from where my buffalo have been. It was just a day trip, but there were so many elephants up there that it took a long time to negotiate the area without upsetting any of them!

We did spend Friday out helping the guys from Dog Camp to find Casey the lion. Rob Jackson (the vet) spent two nights at Dog Camp and they wanted to dart as many animals as possible in that time to change collars from VHF to GPS. On Wednesday Rob darted Valentina the lioness and the fly camp hyaena, both of which went smoothly. I managed to find a space for Shavaughn to go along as she had not seen carnivore dartings before and I was not sure that she would get the opportunity again.

On Thursday morning Guy went to find Tory the hyaena and Rob went to join him, but she was outside the buffalo fence in very thick bush, and kept moving away from them. They got a dart off, but it must have missed her, as they did not manage to get close to her again and she did not show any signs of being affected. So they came back and Rob went to join Gabriel and Femke (carnivore researchers), who were sitting with Claire (lioness). They managed to dart her, but by then it was too late to go for the other hyaena that they had found.

Sven (leopard researcher) meanwhile had set up and baited three leopard traps, rigged up to collars set to start emitting a signal when the door fell. He was checking for a signal every hour for the whole time that Rob was here. One of the traps went off, but it turned out to be a sick lioness that we have seen around camp. Later that evening she tried to take out a honey badger, but after a bit of a scuffle, the honey badger emerged unscathed, leaving the lioness to lick her wounds. She is very thin, however, and it appears that she may die in the near future. She was therefore attracted to the baits in Sven's traps, unfortunately reducing the chances of a leopard visiting them while she was lying outside, unable to actually reach the baits.

On Friday, I radio-ed Dog Camp to see if I could help them, and Gabriel asked me to track Casey (big male lion). Sven had got a signal from him in the direction of hippo pools, so we went to find him while Gabriel and Rob had another go at Tory. They were unsuccessful again, but took a long time, so we left Casey, who had not moved, to go and have some food. When we went back to him, it was after some rain, and he had moved further from the road. We found him next to a relatively fresh elephant carcass and Rob darted him. He had several old injuries, including an infected scratch on his back and the base of his tail looked broken. He was still in good condition though, and the collar changing went smoothly. When the reversal was injected, Gabriel checked for Athena, one of the hyaenas, who turned out to be close by. Rob and I kept an eye on Casey and Gabriel went to find Athena. Rob was able to dart her as well, which was good news. Casey was recovering about 100 m from the carcass, which was attracting a whole clan of hyaenas, but he was quite alert by the time we left him and Rob was happy that he would be ok.

Lots of herds on the Gomoti

On Monday when I checked on the positions of my satellite collared buffalo, I realised that several of them were in areas that were relatively easy to access, along the Gomoti. I first headed south of MTC on our side of the channel to look for Nokya. I tried to go along the edge of the floodplains but was turned back by the water, which is still very high despite having dropped considerably recently. I have been told that my reports are less exciting than they used to be, but I am afraid that I will still avoid getting stuck if possible even if that means a little less adventure!

We found another road going around and managed to upset a few daggaboys, one of which had very pointy horns, but they left us alone after a while. I got a strong signal from Nokya, unfortunately it was coming from the other side of a sizeable channel. I found a nice sandbar in one place, but the approach to the other bank was very muddy and headed straight into trees, so I had to give up.

We drove up past MTC and headed for the Gomoti crossing, as the other herds were on the other side of the channel. We crossed without problems and headed off downstream to the GPS point that I had for the herd on that side (Bambi). We bumped into another herd of around 80 (including some rather ugly cows) shortly after crossing, so we counted them and collected faecal samples. I then checked for any collars and got a very strong signal from B6 coming from the other side of the riparian belt we were next to. So we pottered around and found another 200 - 300 buff, which we also counted. We then continued down and bumped into another herd of 150 - 200, which were very relaxed and co-operative, all walking slowly past a bush so I could count them properly. We left them and continued south. I spotted a bull poking his nose out from the riparian woodland next to a few very large elephants, and that is where we found yet another herd, this one with Bambi and B3 in it, of around 400 - 500 animals. They were all resting up but moved away after we watched them for a while. I collected some faecal samples and came back out onto the floodplains, only to find the herd about the cross the channel. They started off slowly, but quickly picked up speed and started running across my field of vision. I missed quite a few of them but was able to collect data from a decent number of individuals.

All in all, it was a great day filled with buffalo and faecal samples. When we got back, Kevin had been out flying the microlight and confirmed that there were lots of buffalo on the Gomoti, having seen several other herds that I hadn't. They seem to be coming together to form large herds in similar areas, possibly as the floodplains dry up and forage becomes scarcer, forcing them to utilise the same areas.

Before we went out buffalo counting on Monday, we were treated to Matthew's pack of wild dogs coming into the water hole in front of camp, so we sat for a while and watched the pups playing and stalking guinea fowl. A successful cheetah darting took place on Monday as well, adding a new female to the collared population. I believe that she is currently up by Black Pools. Another group of cheetah was seen on the same day, which consisted of one adult female with 3 almost fully grown cubs - two males and a female I think.

When I was in town I was talking to a couple of the guys working for Earth Touch, filming lions in Moremi. The Xaxanaka pride has apparently just taken down their third elephant in the last few weeks. It was not fully grown but was apparently a decent size. They were not sure about the age of the others. One of the film makers was speculating that they are turning to elephants because the buffalo herds have moved off, but none of my collared animals use that area, so I do not know about the movements of the buff herds there, though it would be interesting to look at that area in the future.

Big herd of buff

On Thursday, Shavaughn (my assistant) and I returned to camp after spending four nights in NG31 and NG32 sampling sites used by some of my collared buffalo. We started on Sunday in NG32, at the bottom of the Gomoti, on the buffalo fence. We were able to make our way up to the crossing between NG32 and NG34 without any difficulties. We got several samples on the way and negotiated quite a few muddy patches without getting stuck. As we set up our camp on the Gomoti, we were watched by the Matthews pack of wild dogs - eleven adults and 6 pups. We had spotted them a few minutes earlier as they chased an impala, but it appeared that they failed to catch it and decided to just watch us from a distance for a while.

The next day we continued northwards along the Gomoti through NG32 and into NG31. The sites used by the herds were similar to some used previously in the area, so I could use the tracks that I had recorded previously to find my way between islands. The water had also dropped significantly, which made everything easier. We saw two buffalo herds, one of around 50 and one of about 300, but they were both quite far away and moved off across floodplains too quickly for me to get much data from them. We camped along one of the main channels in NG31, which in retrospect was probably a bit close to several hippo pods. Shavaughn got a fright from one that came out to graze, but she managed to scare it more and it ran back into the water.

We kept travelling up the Gomoti, stopping to watch about 20 crocodiles ripping into what appeared to be an elephant's foot, although it could well have been something different. I thought that the crocodiles would therefore be suitably distracted and not in the spot that I found to cross the channel, seeing as I had to walk the crossing before driving it. It was a lovely sandy crossing to an island that I had wanted to visit for a while and have now found the best way to access it. We saw lots of elephants in that area, but none of them bothered with us too much.

We went back across the channel and drove up to the top of the Chitabe land mass. There we found another suitable crossing and passed into Moremi, into an area that I had not previously visited. It appeared that the area had only recently dried out, but was quite easy to drive around. We found a nice camping spot and were just cooking dinner when we noticed another camp fire in the tree line about 500 m across the floodplain from us. Soon after we spotted it, I watched through binoculars as someone hurriedly put it out. We concluded that they must be poachers, which made us slightly nervous. We got in touch with Guy (my camp manager) and gave him our GPS co-ordinates, arranging to contact him in the morning to check all was well. We did not have any problems, but the next morning a bush fire was started very close to where we saw the camp fire.

We spotted a few buffalo as we were packing up camp and headed over to investigate. It turned out to be a herd of over 1, 000 animals, including my recently collared cow, B2. I managed to age and sex 777 of the buff, which took a while! We headed back out of Moremi and sampled a few more points before stopping for the night close to a big lagoon.

The next morning we sampled our last few points (making a total of 40 sites sampled from 3 collared animals on the trip) and stopped off in Sandibe and Chitabe to say hello before heading back across the Gomoti. We were then called on to help with a zebra darting before we got back to camp for a well-deserved shower!

Darting and collaring nine cows

I have been preparing to dart and collar nine additional cows, so I arranged for Larry (vet) and Peter (helicopter pilot) to go darting on Monday evening and Tuesday morning this week. Guy kindly agreed to fly for me beforehand to save on chopper time, which is really quite expensive. Guy spotted several herds for me on Monday evening, when we were concentrating along the Santantadibe. We collared 4 cows in less than 2 hours of chopper flying time. All went well, and we put two satellite collars on and two store on board collars on.

We flew back to HQ to spend the evening. Larry and Peter were quick to partake of the pool and we spent a very pleasant evening chatting. Some lions came down to the pan as well.

The next morning, Guy flew for us again and found 2 more herds along the Gomoti. We were able to put 5 store on board collars onto cows in 4 different herds. Again, everything went well and we were finished relatively quickly. We were able to take Shavaughn up for the last collar, which she enjoyed very much. The longest period from the dart going in to the buffalo being up and fully mobile was 16 minutes.

This morning we were woken up by lion cubs calling outside our houses, which was rather a nice way to wake. They caused havoc in the workshop and carried a rag away with them.

Shavaughn and I are going across to the Chitabe area for a few nights from tomorrow and will hopefully collect a substantial amount of data from the three collared animals on the Gomoti side.

Santantadibe

Shavaughn and I went across to NG32, along the Santantadibe, for a couple of nights this week. From plotting the GPS fixes onto Google Earth, it looked like most of them were on the western side of the channel, so we first drove to the Thamalakane crossing. As soon as I caught sight of it I doubted our chances of crossing. We found a truck stopped in the water at the crossing point and very few tracks going into the water. An old man was on the other side and he waded across to show us just how deep it was. I tried to walk across at a shallower section, but the water was higher than my waist. I know I am not the tallest person, but I thought that was still a bit high for my car.

So we headed back up to the gate on the eastern side of the Santantadibe, without crossing any of the anticipated water. We followed a road along the edge of the floodplains and came across a herd of about 300 buff in lovely open grassland. At first we thought they were going to run for it, but they relaxed very quickly. In fact as we drove towards them, they stopped walking away from us and turned to walk right past us, about 50 m away, in a slow manner, which was perfect for working out age and sex ratios. I got quite a high percentage of the herd, and was then able to collect fresh faeces from the ground while they watched. By this time the sun was setting, so we drove a km or so and camped. The wind was howling that night, but it stopped eventually and we were able to get some sleep.

The next morning, we started sampling points used by Bianca. It was relatively easy to drive around and most of the points turned out to be on that side of the channel (not quite sure how, but will have another look at Google Earth) and quite easily accessible. We got ten points done before lunch and a further 7 after lunch. We found a lovely campsite in front of floodplains with pools. The next morning there were waterbuck and zebra splashing through the floodplains.

We continued sampling, but by that time had almost reached our quota of samples for the area. I want to avoid oversampling areas on trips, as that leads to a bias in the data. We found a few more sites, bringing our total up to 20. The second to last one was in riparian woodland, and I managed not to see a log that unfortunately cracked my windscreen. I am still upset with myself about this, and will endeavour to be much more careful in future.

I radio-ed camp and they kindly agreed to look up the latest fix for Bianca. I plotted it on my GPS and realised that she was on the other side of the channel. I think that there is a crossing for the Santantadibe, but I was not sure where it was, so decided to leave Bianca for next time. We obtained population dynamics data from the other herd, and I now know which coordinates will mean that Bianca is on the east of the channel.

We drove back to camp and arrived just in time for the end of lunch. It was a short trip, but would have been highly satisfactory if not for the windscreen incident.

Sampling on the Gomoti

Last week Shavaughn and I went back up the Gomoti on a day trip to collect some data from sites used by Nokya. There were several sites that we could not get to because of water, but I was really trying to continue the trip we started before having to hurry back for the fires. I somehow managed to delete some of the habitat photos that I had taken previously, so I wanted to take those again before it changed too much. I was actually amazed by how much the habitats had changed in two weeks. The grasses were quite similar, but the leaves have really started to come out in the trees. I managed to scare several giraffes by walking around without them being able to see me!

We came across a lovely little herd of buff, around 75 of them. They were very relaxed and content to watch us work and pose for photographs. Usually when we get close, they move off, but this time they stuck around. I needed to collect some faecal samples, so got the car as close to fresh poo as I could and collected it, keeping a wary eye on the buff of course. As I was counting them I saw a female with a young calf running about 50 m behind them, but she showed no signs of having seen the herd and just kept running, which was quite odd.

We saw the 4 resident reedbuck that don't seem to move from a patch of floodplain, quite a few lechwe (an indicator that we will probably not reach a site) and a lot of elephant. I darted through a gap in a herd only to find myself in between those elephants and the rest of the herd that were crossing the river. Shavaughn was enchanted by a couple of them submerging themselves completely, but I was keen to get out of the herd before stopping to have a look.

We went to town on Saturday morning to collect the collars that have been refurbished and returned to me. DHL had promised me they would arrive on Saturday, but this failed to happen, so I thought it would be easier to wait until Monday rather than come in and out of camp. The collars did arrive on Monday, and I did not have to pay any fees, despite what DHL in Gabs told me. I had realised by then that the older style collars needed a few more bits and pieces to be programmed. I decided to take a few more days rather than rush on with the darting that was due to happen yesterday, so it has been delayed until next week. I have been switching all the collars on this morning and decorating the area outside the office with them. So far they are behaving very well.

Still burning

This week has again been quite busy with fires, not leaving me much time for research. The days have sort of merged into one, so I cannot remember what happened on which day. The most memorable episode was when large columns of smoke heading towards camp called us back from where we were back-burning at another camp (MTC). We got back to the fire break at our camp (HQ) as quickly as possible. The main parts of the fire passed between us and MTC at quite a pace, but the wind was changing and we decided to back-burn along the road from the fire break towards Roan Pan. We went slowly, but the changing wind made the fire quite unpredictable. Suddenly, it shifted and blew the fire straight across the road, where it continued at terrifying speed. I had been lighting the back-burn, so ran in front of the flames and was fine. The vehicle with the water bowser was in front of me. The hose (which one of us had been holding) came trailing along the road, which was by now covered by flames. We shouted to another guy to grab the hose and spray the flames. The guy who had been holding the hose thought we were shouting because we were in trouble, so ran along the road, straight through the flames to get to us. We managed to get that fire under control, but had to head back to try and deal with one coming towards the fire break from another direction.

A plane flew for us, which was very helpful, as the pilot pointed out several additional blazes that we would not have known about. Eventually, we managed to get everything under control. The fire flared up again in a few places over the next few days, and by then everyone was completely sick of it. We took to beating out all the flames, then spraying down logs with the bowser, and then burying those logs to make sure no sparks would fly.

Then Shavaughn and I had a couple of days break in Maun, when I also arranged with some pilots for them to record all buff herds they see over the next week.

Most of the buff have stayed in similar sort of areas. Chanel has moved south, away from the few islands that she has spent the majority of the season on. Chanel, Lasanya and Nokya have been overlapping in their ranges, and have spent some time in the same herd, but have split again quite quickly. Bianca is still in a different area to the other three.

Hopefully things will calm down now and I will be able to get out and do some fieldwork, as these fires have definitely set me back, although that is just part of living in the bush!

Fires!

At the beginning of the week, Shavaughn and I went flying with Guy to get an idea of the sizes of the herds that my collared animals were in. They were in herds ranging from 250 - 700, and we saw a few herds that did not have any collars in them as well. There is a lot of water out there, but we were also able to determine which areas I should still be able to access despite the high flood. Hunting season is also over, so I can now get into all the concessions again.

Shavaughn and I headed up the Gomoti on Wednesday into Moremi to collect some data from points used by Nokya. We saw a herd of buffalo on the way, and were able to age and sex around a quarter of them before something upset them and they took off. We headed further north than we had been before to try and ascertain whether we could cross onto a rather large island that has been used quite a lot by a couple of the herds. Unfortunately, the channel there is rather deep and muddy, so we will leave it for a while and try again when the water has started to subside.

We were able to collect data from a couple of sites before we had to return to HQ in a bit of a hurry. There have been fires around camp for a few weeks, but this week they started to get a bit too close for comfort. We were monitoring the radio, and when Dog Camp said that the fire was reaching them, I decided to abandon fieldwork and go and give them a hand.

By the time we got back there had already been one back burn lit, but we were on hand to try again that evening. Unfortunately there was not much wind, so that plan was abandoned. On Thursday night, we tried to back burn along the road towards Rhino Pan. We were going quite well, but again the wind died so we did not complete the whole stretch.

On Friday, we went out around midday towards Dog Camp, where the fire was getting close. We dragged acacia trees along the road for several hours to try and create a fire break. The wind then changed to our favour, so we back burned again, moving along from the place where the fire had stopped earlier. When the wind died we headed for home again.

Yesterday, we again went out around lunch time and just made it to the fire in time to stop it jumping the road and heading straight for Dog Camp. Again we dragged acacias to widen the fire break. We had to use the bowser to stop big flames and sparks from flying across the road, and we were beating the fire out when it reached the shorter grass. We managed to get that section under control, despite a small scare when a patch on the wrong side of the road started to burn. We then went to another section and waited for the fire to reach the road before beating it out. Once that was under control, we headed back to a patch between two burns that had not burnt itself. We lit a back burn there and got rid of that threat. That was when Keren exclaimed that we would be home early. However, on our way back we found another section that was heading straight for the road, so we called everyone back in and beat that bit down as well. Then we went home.

Today, there are still some fires to the south of camp that are flaring up, so we are keeping an eye on them. There are others further away, but they seem to be heading away from all the camps so we are happy to just let them burn! Fire is an important part of the natural cycle of the bush, after all.

Hopefully the fires will die down soon and we can all get back to work, probably after a day of sleep. The the entire effort has been highly successful so far, and is by far the best team-building excercise I have ever experienced! (And I have discovered that setting fires for back burning purposes is a lot of fun!!)

Counting running buffalo

Earlier last week, Nokya made her way to our side of the Gomoti, so Shavaughn and I went out to get population dynamics data from her herd. We found her close to Black Pools in a herd of around 200-250. This herd was on the move, so we kept trying to outflank them to be in a position that they would walk past us. We were able to count the last quarter and some of the first ones. However, they spent a good deal of their time running, even when we were several hundred metres away. We followed them at a distance to try and get them to relax, but had to give up when they crossed water and just kept heading north into really wet areas.

We headed back down the Gomoti to the usual game drive areas and spotted another herd close to the crossing point, but on the other side. That herd was very relaxed and we were able to age and sex most of them (around 150-200). We started to head back but had to wait for a large breeding herd of elephant (at least 100) to cross the road and let us through.

Stuck on the Gomoti

It has been a little while since I added a blog. My parents came to visit and we had a lovely few days on mobile safari, with some really good wildlife sightings. It was lovely to have them out and show them where I work.

One of my collared cows, Bianca, that was seen on the Gomoti before I got back to HQ crossed back to the Santantadibe, but Shavaughn and I were able to collect some vegetation samples that they used on our side before they left. We sampled 9 sites in a morning, with a little off-road island hop to get to the last two, past some black herons using their wings to create shade and attract fish. The crossing we used was a bit sticky and I correctly predicted that we would get stuck on the way back. This was Shavaughn's first experience at getting stuck, but she started digging with gusto and we had gotten one wheel onto a rack when one of the local game drive vehicles drove past on their way to turn the water pump off. On their way back they came over and without a word other than Hello, they towed us out, which was much appreciated, although we would of course have done it ourselves with a bit more time!

Leopard

This last week I crossed the Gomoti and went into NG31 to get samples from Nokya, who has been spending most of the last month on the other side of the river and has just come onto this side in the last couple of days. We managed to get samples from several quite wet areas by island hopping and wading around trying to find non sludgy routes whilst keeping a wary eye out for the many hippos in that area. I now realise why using a mokoro in that area would be rather dangerous - there really are hippos everywhere! We found a non-collared herd of buffalo that were not hugely co-operative. They hid in bushes and when they did come out they ran straight across water in a big bunch, which was not conducive to accurate counts of sex and age. We camped out on an islands surrounded by hippos that were calling all night - I never realised quite how extensive their vocabulary is.

The next day we drove further north along the Gomoti, looking for places to get across to the sites that I wanted to sample. Unfortunately every time that I thought we might reach one we came up against a rather large hippo-filled channel. We stopped off at the Afriscreen filming camp as we were driving past and asked them about crossing the channel. They took us further up to where they thought was a crossing for that large channel. Unfortunately it turned out to be a backwater and we found a much smaller crossing on the way back. We sampled a couple of sites on our side of the channel but unfortunately had to give up on the other ones. It was useful to find out where we could get to for future reference. And on the way back we found a beautiful, very relaxed male leopard in a tree.

We came back across the Gomoti but I think that will be the last time I cross until the flood water starts to go down, as the sand bar in the middle is almost underwater and the water came up to my fuel cap. Nokya had crossed over as well, so we went to get population dynamics from her herd, close to Black Pools. We found another herd close by and managed to age/sex 500 animals between the two herds. As I was calling out age/sex for the first herd, I spotted a male lion sticking his head up from sage behind the herd and looking rather interested. However, by the time I had finished my count I could no longer see him and when I went to look for him could not find him. The second herd managed to leave a calf behind, so the lion might have found him a bit later but not while we were there.

Counting buffalo

Earlier this week one of my collared cows, Lasanya, was on the Gomoti in a location that I knew would be accessible. She was on the other side of a main channel, but we could see the herd very well from the Moremi side. It worked out better than us following them as they seemed to feel less flighty with a decent volume of water between us and them. The first herd we found I estimated to be between 400-500 animals and I got data on age/sex/body condition for 247 individuals. The signal from the collar was coming from further north, so we continued and found another herd of a similar size, where I got data for 265 individuals. Earlier that animal was in a larger herd that was probably these two combined. We continued along the Gomoti to see if there were any other herds in the area and found a small herd of around 70 animals, and I managed to get data from almost all of them.

Lasanya then crossed to Black Pools, which is fairly inaccessible by vehicle (we tried unsuccessfully) and spent a few days in that area before crossing the land tongue again back to the Gomoti and heading north. A couple of days ago we followed the route that she took and got vegetation samples from the sites that she used.

Lasanya and Nokya are currently in the northern part of the Gomoti. Chanel is still further up to the west of Mboma. Bianca is on the Santantadibe, not too far from the buffalo fence.

Bianca goes exploring

Last week I went across into NG32 and Chitabe. One of my collared cows, Bianca, walked up to the top of Chitabe and back down again, so I wanted to follow her route and take vegetation samples from the sites that she passed through (see map above). We got permission to go into NG32 but there was a hunt starting a day later so we only stayed 2 nights in that concession, mostly on the floodplains next to the Santantadibe. Bianca spent a lot of time walking, when most of the time herds move more slowly, grazing as they walk. This was good because it meant I could get samples of vegetation that she walked straight through, which is what I record as ignoring habitats.

After two nights in NG32 we headed up into Chitabe and stopped by the camp to say hello to one of the managers that I had previously met in town, and to let them know we were in the area. There was a big elephant right next to the office who successfully negotiated a very tight turn between the end of the ramp leading to the guest quarters and the office. We were given coffee and told to get in touch with them if we had any problems.

We followed the route that Bianca took to the north and eventually reached the point that she reached after walking 6 km in 4 hours, after which she rested for an hour and turned around to walk back south. We sat and tried to think like a buffalo and work out why she turned around at that point, but did not succeed. She got there at midnight, so it is unlikely that she was offended by the view. There were zebra and tsessebe grazing across the channel that was close by and several of my other herds have spent time in that area. She has now walked further south into a different area that she has not used previously, but is moving more slowly around that area.

There are several possible explanations for the movement pattern shown by Bianca. From the amount of faeces at the various sites, she was in a herd smaller than 100 individuals. They could have been a dispersal group trying to move into a different herd. They could also have been somehow comparing the quality of grazing in the area that they left with that in the area they walked to. If so, they may well make the trip again at a later stage.

A lion amongst buffalo

Lasanya and Nokya were on the Gomoti earlier this week so I took the opportunity to go out and get some population dynamics data from the herds. Nokya turned out to be in an inaccessble area, but we came across a different small herd of around 50 that we counted in addition to the herd that Lasanya was in. That herd was rather large, to say the least. We tracked the collar and saw some buff on an island so drove around it to get a better look, only to realise that there were buff all around the edge of the next island as well. We spotted a young male lion strolling amongst the buff, hoping to snatch a calf I presume, although the buffalo did not seem too concerned by his presence.

We drove around the next island and saw a large group on the other side, but managed to age and sex 239 individuals as they crossed a small patch of water. The lion then crossed behind them and we continued to follow them.

We saw large numbers of buffalo crossing another, much deeper channel that we were not able to cross, though watching them cross was an impressive sight! They were heading across towards the other side of the Gomoti so we crossed back over to our side and drove up to see if we could find them from that side. We found them, but it was starting to get dark.

I just got back from Maun, where I chatted to pilots who have seen the herd that I was with, and they all estimated its size at close to 1,000 animals. I think that we saw about 600 - 700 animals, but there were likely to be more. A herd of that size is almost impossible to count from the ground, and the estimates from several pilots agree, so I think it is safe to stay with that number.

Lasanya has now moved south on the Gomoti and is close to the fence. Nokya is on the other side of the Gomoti, a bit north of the cutline. Chanel is on a large island to the west of Mboma. Bianca decided to return to the Stanley's areas after her foray into Chitabe. She appears to have followed the road at Chitabe for a few days, then turned around and headed back to places that she knows. I intend to go out this week to samples sites that she walked through and see what habitats she was in before deciding to turn around.

The beautiful island

One of my collared animals, Chanel, spent the last two weeks on one decent-sized island just to the west of Mboma island in the Moremi. Guy was kind enough to look at the area on Google Earth and pointed out a number of crossings that he thought should be possible, depending on water levels. I tried to find out where the flood was from several people in Maun, but as usual everyone had a different opinion. Pilots told me if I wanted they would make a special effort to look out of the window, and then told me that there was quite a lot of water there, which wasn't particularly useful. Tour operators and boat operators basically didn't know but some said the flood was there and others said it wasn't and then one said it wouldn't really make much difference to the water levels in that area anyway. So I decided to just go and look for myself.

I walked across the first potential crossing that I came to after driving up to the bottom of Mboma island and following a little used road and found a large sand bar in the middle that was almost exposed and at no point did the water come up past the middle of my thigh. The bottom was sandy, so I decided to go for it and all was well. On the other side, there were some tree islands in the middle of floodplain, which was completely dry and very good to drive over, once I realised I was not going to sink and get stuck.

We then reached the main island and did a couple of vegetation points, then drove up to the northern end, where the buffalo had been most recently. There were several elephants that we managed to avoid. The island itself was beautiful - probably the prettiest spot I have been in the Delta, and an absolute pleasure to drive across. The only trees were in small stands, with open grassland and dry floodplains in between. We found the buffalo across a small stretch of wet floodplain but unfortunately they decided to run after looking at us for a couple of minutes. We crossed over to where they had been and followed the cloud of dust, only to be thwarted by a deep pool with a very sticky bottom. There was no other way around, so we left them to move away, watching the dust cloud as they started out across the next island and returned to sampling the sites that they had used.

We spent the whole next day sampling and ended up with a total of 28 sample sites, so it turned out to be a very successful trip. The buff had spent 2 weeks on the island, which is 6 km long, so we were able to move between sample sites easily and quickly. There were a couple that we had to leave because elephants were there, and one bull got upset with us and mock charged but then moved away.

Camping out was lovely. It is a huge privilege as a researcher to be able to camp wherever I end up without having to worry about getting back to a designated campsite. The second night we had an elephant cow and calf come through just after we had gone to bed, but they moved on after investigating us a bit. We heard hyaena calling at night and the next morning 2 sets of lions were roaring for about 3 hours but we didn't see them.

We finished the sampling and went across to the main part of Moremi to try and find some buffalo herds to count and get population dynamics. We spent the night at Xaxanaka campsite, and I picked a spot where I thought I wouldn't disturb anyone, only to have a large group of people pitch right next to us. They went to bed relatively early, but they left their coolbox out, so of course a hyaena came along just after midnight and stole it. Shortly afterwards, a large bull elephant came to the tree next to my tent and shook it for the fruit. He was very close, but seemed very relaxed and was happy to eat the fruit and avoid my tent. He finished there and moved across to walk through the other people's camp and smelled fruit through the open window of their car, so stuck his trunk in and rummaged around for oranges. After a while, the people realised something was happening and all piled out of their tents to have a look. They then tried to shoo the elephant away - straight towards our tents. Luckily he was very aware of our tents, even when reversing straight towards them, and despite having his front and rear legs on either side of a corner of my tent at one point, he was very good and maneuvered himself so he didn't touch us at all. The people were not as considerate, as they seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that if they had managed to scare the ele, he would have come straight into us. After that, I decided not to use public campsites again - it is unpleasant and dangerous! The sunrise was nice though.

More mokoro and short break

My second mokoro expedition at the beginning of last week went as smoothly as the first, although we missed the last point I wanted as the sun was settting and we would have had to go quite close to hippos on the way there and back. Otherwise, we collected a total of 17 data points, which was approximately what I had in mind, and we saw some bachelor herds, which was also useful.

I went into Moremi for a day with a friend last week and saw two non-collared herds of buffalo close to Xakanaxa, one of around 200 and one of around 300 individuals. I was able to collect age/sex ratio data and faecal samples from them both, which made me very happy. We also saw Amelia the leopard and a strange albino lechwe which looks remarkably like a lamb/goat.

I have spent the last few days in Maun trying to get my hands on the aerial photos for my study site, and am hoping that today will be the day.

I have also spoken to all the air charter companies in Maun and a good few of the pilots to get them to record all the buffalo herds that they see, with a location and approximate herd size. I am hoping that this will work out as a cheap (a few beers to the pilots that help me with this) way of doing aerial surveys. If I get several reports of herds of similar sizes in the same area, the reports will corroborate each other and should prove relatively accurate. I have already received several sightings with GPS coordinates and sizes, so for now the idea seems to be working.

Sampling from a mokoro

Given the wet areas that my buff have been using, I have decided to try sampling from a mokoro (a traditional dug-out canoe). After asking several people about the best way to find a poler, I was told to find my way to Boro, which is reknowned as prime poler habitat. I found my way there ok (via the prison) and found lots of polers, but managed to take a wrong turn on the way back and get a little lost, although I knew I was heading in the general direction of Maun. Luckily, a happy smiley man in a Landrover found us and led us back to the outskirts of Maun. I returned to Boro the next day to pick up my poler and bring him out to HQ, getting back to the main road without getting lost.

We started poling soon after sunrise and found our way through channels and across floodplains to a total of seven points from which we collected vegetation data and samples. We saw one hippo, but it was out of the water close to one of our sites, so we were able to avoid it and had no terrifying experiences of hippo surging out of the water under our mokoro as I had envisaged. We also found a very fresh lion scat at one of our sites, but only when we had almost finished there, so we just completed the sampling. The sites used by the buff were mostly on the edges of islands, not in the middle of floodplains, and not too far from the water, so we didn't have to traipse across huge distances to reach the sites. The main grass, couch grass (Cynodon dactylon), does not seem to be appealing to them, and they appear to prefer the taller grasses on the island interiors.

I generally found the mokoro to be quite a relaxing way of getting between points, as opposed to bashing through mopane and hopping over logs in my car, which can be stressful and damaging to the vehicle. Several of the points we could not reach because of land being in the way, which makes a change! We will be going again tomorrow to get at least another 8 points, I hope.

I am getting aerial photographs of my entire study area from the University of Botswana. I am going to try and speak to some more people about using a boat to get up into the swampy areas north of Chitabe after getting them to look at the aerial photos and work out which channels may be navigable.

A big old elephant with the torn ear has been hanging around HQ recently, but he is very relaxed, so I really don't mind him being outside my door on a regular basis. There have also been zebra and tsessebe at the pan in front of camp for the last few days, which makes a lovely backdrop for lunch.

Trying to get around water

My collared buffalo have been moving about a fair bit lately. Nokya was on the Gomoti, then moved overnight up to the Chitabe area the others were in but has now decided she preferred it on the Gomoti and has come back down. Lasanya and Chanel spent some time together in one herd and have moved quite far north into highly flooded areas west of Third Bridge and Dead Tree Island in Moremi. Bianca seems to be continuing to wander around the NG32/ Chief's Island area, though I think she might be spending a bit more time in floodplains than in mopane.

I have been speaking to various people about accessing my buffalo in the flooded areas north of Chitabe and have generally been met with disbelieving stares. It would appear that the water is too high for driving, even with a specially adapted swamp vehicle, and that the high hippo density means using a mokoro or a small boat would be fairly (read completely) suicidal. Which is encouraging.

I have also been speaking to people who work in the area, including at Chitabe, who have said I can go up there and they can show me the roads that they use so I can work out how far north I can go. Apparently, the buff move from the permanent swamps back down towards Chitabe fairly regularly. So hopefully I can sample some of the floodplains and maybe islands closest to Chitabe when the buff are using those areas. However, if this latest northwards trend continues, they may soon be leaving the country altogether.

At the beginning of this week, I drove around the bottom of the Gomoti and onto the other side, where I thought I might be able to get to some areas that one of my herds was using. However, there is still a lot of water and they are mainly grazing on islands in the middle of the Gomoti that I can't quite get to. I got some vegetation samples from locations that they walked through apparently without stopping on their way up to Chitabe that should hopefully show that there is not much grass for them to eat in the inland habitat types, which is why they are sticking to those lovely wet areas.

I have arranged with the community in the Stanley's area to go out with a mokoro and see whether I can feasibly access some of the islands that the buff over there have been using. There are several mokoro stations there and the guys must know the area pretty well, which increases chances of success, although the community guys I spoke to were quite dubious about those chances, what with hippos and some of the channels being completely blocked by reeds, but I will give it a try and see what happens. And then of course in a few weeks the flood will come in and exacerbate these issues. But with a bit of luck and trials of various access methods, I hope to be able to collect at least some data from the flood season!

Chief's Island

My last field trip was reasonably successful, when I managed to collect faecal samples, vegetation samples and observational data. The herd was on Chief's Island, which takes about 7 hours to drive to. The water on the roads has finally started to go down, which is a relief. However, when we stopped off at Stanley's Camp to say hello, they told us that Chief's Camp had already started to reduce the area that they use for game drives because of rising flood water, and the water was expected to start rising again at Stanley's abut 3 weeks later. We managed to find the herd quite close to the road, in relatively open mopane, and were able to age and sex 111 individuals, with a total estimate for the herd of about 150 - 200. I saw the collared cow as well, looking healthy.

After spending a few hours with the herd, we moved onto sampling vegetation from areas that they had used over the 2 weeks prior to that date. Despite the vegetation map that I have telling me that there was lots of acacia woodland, the only habitat types to be found were mopane and grassland. We sampled several sites in which the herd had been grazing, resting and walking. We managed to find a route through the dense mopane using open grassland areas, which was a huge relief as the last time we were in that area we encountered mopane that was very difficult to drive through. Needless to say I saved that route onto my GPS for future reference!!

Unfortunately, as we were about to reach the 16th sample site, the drag link arm for my steering fell off (the second time that has happened, although the first time was at the other end!). I re-attached it using cable ties and duck tape, but was not convinced of the wisdom of continuing since we had just decided that we had to go through a particularly dense stand of mopane. So we re-traced our tracks and returned to the road to get back to Maun and fix the steering. We drove very slowly on the tar just in case the cable ties decided to snap, but luckily they held together and I was able to get the car fixed the next day.

I have been in the UK for the last 10 days, where they were very excited to see the sun for the first time in 2 years. Bless them. I was able to access data from my collars but did not have the software with me to work out where the fixes were, so I have just been checking that they have been moving. Above is a jpeg of their movements over the last 6 weeks, with the big red symbols representing their current locations. The three on the NG34 side have generally moved west, with the sole survivor in NG32 still just moving up and down between Chief's Island and NG32.

My new assistant (Shavaughn) will be arriving at the end of May, so we will get cracking on field work then. Until then, my supervisor has asked me to write a summary of my work so far and my plans for the rest of the year. I am also going to have to revise one of my chapters, so I will be spending a decent amount of time in the office, unless one of my buff decides to take pity on me and come closer so I can spy on them without travelling too far or crossing too much water.

Darting Savanna

Another of my collars (B77) has started malfunctioning. It seems to be very confused about the date and is sending me old fixes instead of new ones. Televilt (the collar company) said it is a problem with the processor and could I send it back so they can fix it? This is not as simple as it sounds, and involves a vet, a helicopter and the means to pay for those!

I was supposed to dart on Friday but Peter, the pilot, got in touch with me to say that he had to fly for the King of Spain that day, so we did it on the Thursday. Guy kindly flew for me on Wednesday to get a fix on where they were so we headed straight for that point and found a herd close by. We landed so that Rob (the vet) could load darts and we took the doors off the heli (which made the flight even better!). I checked for a VHF signal and got a strong one from in front of us. So we took off and spotted them almost immediately in a herd of around 120 individuals. We managed to spot the collared cow, Savanna, with her calf. They were close to water and quite a thick stand of crotons, so we spent some time trying to get them to run into an open area. Eventually they cooperated and Rob got a good shot off. We then circled the herd for around 20 mins but the cow showed no real signs that she was feeling the drug. This was lucky in some ways, as she got charged by an elephant whilst we were watching her. There were at least a hundred eles hanging around in various groups and some were getting a bit upset by the helicopter.

We went in again as it became apparent that the dart had somehow malfunctioned. Rob got off another good shot and she went down in 6 minutes while her calf ran off with the rest of the herd. I went in and got the collar off without problems. Peter pulled the first dart out and it discharged on his shoulder but we cleaned it up quickly. Rob thought that the tip of the needle just got clogged up with skin so that the drug could not get out. She was reversed and got up within a minute so all was well and we flew back to Maun.

Recovering a collar

One of my collars (B78) has not moved in a couple of weeks, so I went across to Stanley's on Wednesday to retrieve it. The camp managers organised everything so we were able to head out that afternoon. We tied a mokoro to the top of my vehicle and drove up the Mombo road until we were as close as possible to the fix that I had for the collar. We drove off-road for a little while but we encountered what looked like a quite extensive stretch of water. So we unloaded the mokoro and headed out, at which point we were approximately 1.9km from the collar. We were able to push the mokoro through water for a while, but soon realised that there was more land between us and the collar. So the Shaun (the manager) and Rex (the poler) carried the mokoro, refusing to let my assistant or I help them, even though neither of them had brought shoes and they trod on thorns repeatedly. We made it to the main channel that we had to cross and were able to pole along it for quite a while. It was really quite deep and I think that using a mokoro was the only realistic option. We left the mokoro in a safe spot on the other side and continued on foot (having first taken a GPS fix for the mokoro!) for a further 500 m.

When we got within 20m of the fix I had for the collar, I said that it could be anywhere around that spot. I then took two more steps and spotted the collar lying on the ground right in front of me. It was not on a carcass, as I had thought, but one of the points where the belting connects to the battery unit had been ripped. The collar must have caught on something, possibly a branch or the horn of another buffalo, but it is good to know that the collars will break in that case, and not the animal! Unfortunately I will need to send it back to Televilt for repair, but I downloaded all of the data from it without a problem.

We re-traced our steps and made it back to the car without any mis-haps, then drove back to Stanley's, arriving quite soon after sunset. The managers said that since it was quite late, we could stay in the pilot's tent and join them for a braai after the guests had finished, which was very kind.

We then drove up onto Chief's Island to collect some data from one of the herds. We went off-road and collected some vegetation data, but the habitat was really difficult to drive through. It was short stocky mopane with logs and fallen trees everywhere, presumably because of a high elephant population. It took us 2 hours to drive 2 km, so we decided to leave the rest of the fixes as I was only testing new methodology. We managed to get the car stuck on a hidden log and bent the steering somewhat, tho not enough to affect the vehicle. After that I got Laura to walk in front of the vehicle and scout a route, but it was very slow going, with some areas being completely impassable.

We drove back down into NG32 and had a look at an area to see whether we could drive there, but I think it will be a job for a mokoro. We tracked the herd there and did some counts of the herd and the age and sex classes therein. The cow in that herd is looking very healthy and has a young calf. We came back to HQ yesterday, having found a lovely road, complete with bridge, that was built to go around the water where we got stuck last week, which was a lovely surprise, but I wish I'd known about it before!!

Giving myself a concusssion

One of my collars in the NG32 area (B78) does not appear to have moved more than approximately 20 m in the last two weeks. I took a little while to realise this as the collar is supposed to give a mortality signal in these circumstances but instead it has been giving me slightly different fixes every hour. The collar itself is on the edge of a large island, which I thought might be accessible from the south. I therefore tried to reach it from that direction at the beginning of last week. All the roads that I tried ended in swampy floodplains with quite a few mokoro stations. I asked for directions to NG17 (as the collar is just in that concession) and was told to go towards Stanley's and take a road east. So we tried that, and the road had been worked on, with small bridges and dirt piled up to make a road. However, this road stopped suddenly. We kept going off road but got stuck when we were still 10 km away from the collar. There was a lot of water, but we would have tried to continue if I hadn't had a slight mishap.

We got stuck in mud and while jacking to get out, I stupidly got too close to the high-lift jack and it pinged up and hit the side of my head. My ear was ripped, but I didn't pass out or vomit. We finished getting the car out and Laura sensibly told me that I had to go back to Maun. So we drove back. I felt a bit light headed and spaced out, but not too bad, but Laura correctly diagnosed me as having a concussion. We almost got back to the veterinary fence, but went through the last big stretch of water and stopped. I checked the wheels and realised that they were not buried, so my somewhat muddled mind came to the conclusion that the car was broken. My radio was not getting through for some reason, so I used my satellite phone and got in touch with Guy (the camp manager), who luckily had not yet left for camp. I explained that I thought my gears were broken as I was not moving when I accelerated. I somehow forgot to tell him about my concussion, but he very kindly said he would come out and rescue me.

I realised after about 40 minutes that it was very likely that my vehicle was merely stuck on the diffs, but by that time Guy was on his way and I thought my faculties wouldn't be up to much anyway. When Guy arrived, he found me swimming in the ruts in the road with a big smile on my face. He looked at my pupils and told me I was indeed concussed. He pulled me out and then changed my engine oil, which was full of water. The one positive thing about the concussion is that it made me very happy and stopped me from being stressed about being stuck. Laura drove my vehicle back to camp and Guy took me to town to get checked out. Brett, the paramedic, said that I couldn't go back to camp and had to be supervised, so Guy again helped me out and let me stay in his house, before we flew back to camp the next day.

As for my collar, Guy flew the next day to track and also had a good look at the GPS location of my collar. He said that there was a big channel between the road and the collar, but he was yet again willing to help me by swimming across, or walking with me. I got in touch with Stanley's Camp and explained the situation. They very kindly agreed to let me borrow a mokoro, a poler and a man with a rifle to walk to the collar and recover it, so I will not need to inconvenience Guy, even though he did not seem to mind. I should be able to go and get the collar tomorrow or the next day, and then continue on to do field work in the area - hopefully without hitting my head!!

My ear is mostly healed now and the lump on the side of my head is going down. I had a few days where I couldn't concentrate on much, but my mental faculties are coming back to me now too. I had to stay in camp for 4 days and not do anything too strenuous. A couple of the carnivore researchers took Laura and I out to a spotted hyaena den as they wanted to get photos of the cubs. We spent a few hours watching the cubs and adults playing and jumping around, which was lovely. There were 6 cubs of varying ages and several adults, and they managed to get photos of all of them.

Still too wet for fieldwork

I have been spending far too much time in front of my computer over the last couple of weeks, but I have developed a protocol that I hope will work. I have looked at the last two weeks of fixes for the three herds up at Stanley's and have tried to work out their activity patterns for each fix. I have also worked out the habitat that they were in from the vegetation map. I will be heading across there tomorrow for a few nights to check that this will work, and to take vegetation samples from the sites that I have identified.

I am still quite worried about the volumes of water over there, but I think that I just have to realise that I will get stuck, probably several times, but that is just something I have to deal with. Some of the buff have spent most of their time in what should be accessible places, but there are also plenty of fixes in floodplains and on islands, so I will definitely have to hire a boat and mokoro soon after this trip to go and collect the remaining data from those sites. Can't say I am very keen on that idea, but hopefully will avoid the hippos and not fall in to be eaten by crocs!

We had very little sleep in camp last night. Yesterday, some lions killed a zebra right next to the pan in front of HQ. I did not see them myself, but apparently it was a female and 3 cubs. They stuck around all day yesterday and last night the hyaenas came in. They were calling very loudly most of the night, until at 4.15 this morning one of the lions had enough of it and roared at them, in a way that I interpreted as telling them to shut the hell up! There was one whoop after that but then everything went quiet and we all got a couple of hours of sleep.

Getting stuck at Stanley's

I recently drove across into NG32 to try and get some data from the collared buff over there. I was planning on spending 6 nights there, to combine data collection from two individuals. I have not been back to that area since the end of January, when the ground was too wet for off road driving. I thought that things would have improved, as we have not had much rain on this side and most areas have started to dry up. Unfortunately, Stanley's have still been getting significant amounts of rain, with a 40 mm storm just a few days before I went across. Some of the flooded parts of the road had dried up, but most were at the same level and some were higher. There was one section that was completely dry in January and has now become a huge lake that the road goes straight through.

We managed to get almost all the way to Stanley's before getting stuck in a channel, thankfully with the bonnet out of the water, but the rear section of the vehicle was decidedly under water. We radio-ed Stanley's and they were very helpful and sent a car out. By that time, water had gotten into the fuel tank and we sputtered the rest of the way to Stanleys. They were very helpful there, and offered to drain the fuel tank for me, which is when we realised that my silly fuel tank does not have a drainage plug. Eventually, we realised that there was nothing for it except to just drive through until the water had been used up. Luckily there was not too much water in there, so it only took a couple of hours for the vehicle to behave almost normally. Needless to say, we avoided deep water while it was struggling, but that meant we ended up driving in circles for a while and interrupted a game drive 3 times!!

Anyway, having looked at the terrain, with full floodplains and a pan in almost every dip in the grassland areas, I decided that trying to follow buffalo for 3 days would not be possible, as they seem to have no problem with crossing channels. Around Stanley's, there is a network of roads, but further out there are no roads, and crossing floodplains and channels off road is not something that is recommended. So, feeling stressed and defeated, I came back to camp.

I will have a meeting with my supervisor tomorrow and discuss these difficulties. They are not likely to be resolved any time soon, as I doubt the ground will dry up enough before the flood comes through. Since the water levels are already high, the flood is likely just to pour through and cover everything, which will add to my problems. Everyone keeps joking about me using a mokoro (a dug-out canoe), but I am starting to consider it!