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.