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.