I returned from Namibia a few days ago, where I had a lovely time and saw, amongst other things, a black zebra in Etosha .
A friend of mine, RosAnna, is going to be assisting me while Janette has some time off, and although she arrived fine, her bag did not. We spent a couple of days in Maun hoping for the bag to arrive, but I had to do some fieldwork for the end of last season, so we had to give up for a bit and come out to camp. The day after we arrived in camp we set off to collect samples from the Chitabe area. Since I was last there 3 weeks ago, water has come up across the access road outside the fence, and is now well above my waist. I looked for places that other people had crossed, and eventually found a small bridge that had been built, so we used that and continued. We camped on the boundary with NG32, and were serenaded by lions from the moment we set up camp until about midnight. Two elephants walked fairly close to our tents, but did not bother us.
The next day, we found three separate herds of buffalo, two with collared animals in them, and reaching a combined total of around 1,500 animals. We collected samples from several sites, although there were quite a few that I was unable to get to because of water. That was the last of the season's sampling, so I now have to wait for a couple of weeks before I can start with the next season's sampling.
