Migrating Valkyrie

Valkyrie, one of my collared buffalo, decided a couple of weeks ago to migrate, which turned out to be a little early. She spent a few days in the wet season home range, then returned to the Gomoti. A couple of days later, after a storm, she left again, this time taking a much longer, more circuitous route before eventually returning to the Gomoti, not far from HQ. I wanted to sample the entire route that she had taken, to see where she had decided to stop as well as the areas that she walked through. Roz and I started this endeavour on the 6th November, following the first back and forth mission. However, we were unable to complete it because my vehicle was giving me problems, refusing to idle and consuming a lot of fuel. I decided to take it to Maun, where I hoped (in vain as it turns out!) that it would be fixed quickly. While we were in Maun, I was monitoring the movements of the buffalo, and saw that Valkyrie had set out on her second mission.

We eventually got the vehicle back on the 20th November, with a new carb, new manifold, a refurbished cylinder head and a variety of other repairs, and headed straight out to finish sampling. We spent the next four days retracing Valkyrie's route, coming out of it with close to a hundred sample sites and a decent level of exhaustion.

We were sampling along the main Moremi road when we bumped into Goose, one of the collared leopards. We followed him for a little while, as it was the first time that Roz saw a wild leopard, and she was very excited. He was checking around, but seemed more interested in marking than hunting, but when we saw him suddenly stop and look interested, we approached cautiously to see what he was checking out, and saw a herd of about 50 buffalo in front of him. He lay down and watched them, and they eventually just moved past him without worrying him at all. It was an interesting interaction, but we then left him and continued with sampling.

I have just checked the website for the latest fixes from my collars, and I see that while we were sampling, Valkyrie has gone again, this time taking Jezebel with her! I believe that I have managed to collar the most indecisive buffalo in the Delta, although it is very interesting. She (and her herd) responds almost immediately to rainfall, whereas all the other buffalo that I have collared have waited for several weeks after the first rains. I am now hoping that the rains come, so that she stays that side and I will go to sample from her latest meanderings.

Cheetah hunt

Last week, Roz and I went out to do some sampling not too far from HQ. When we got up to Hippo Pools, I spotted a cloud of dust that could only be from a large buffalo herd, so we went to investigate. After a few attempts at counting the herd, I managed to see the collar that had stopped working entirely, still on Harpy, the buffalo cow. I got hold of Rob Jackson the vet and Peter Perlstein the helicopter pilot, who were both free, and arranged for them to come out to help me remove the collar. I stayed with the herd, and after a few hours, the helicopter came in and landed to pick me up. Harpy was in a herd of around 500, with no working VHF, so just spotting her from the helicopter took a while. The wind was gusting so we could only dart in one direction and the herd was running all over the place. We finally managed to get a dart into her, and she went down fairly quickly. We recovered the collar and reversed her, then Rob and Peter headed back to Maun.

The next day, we went the long way round to Chitabe, to sample from a few points along the Gomoti. The area has dried up nicely, and we were able to get around without any problems, even bumping into one of the collared lionesses from Dog Camp, Chanel. We went to say hello at Chitabe, where we were well received, as always, and managed to find the wild dog pack of 22 animals before heading out.

Yesterday we went again to sample from areas close to HQ, as the previous trip was shortened somewhat by the darting. We went to Hippo Pools, and found three cheetah: Franky, Fredericks and Flojo's cub just by the side of the road. They got up and slowly walked off, so we followed and watched them climb a tree and deposit their scent marks. They kept walking and spotted some impala, which seemed entirely oblivious. They were behind a riparian tree island, and at first the three cheetah all approached together. Then Franky and the cub went to the right, while Fredericks sneaked round the other side, picking up to a trot to get round more quickly. We stayed with the others, and watched the cub hang back while Franky walked slowly towards the impala before stopping right out in the open about 100m from them. We caught a glimpse of movement and saw Fredericks trotting round the back, then the impala saw him and ran away from him, straight in front of the car with Franky in hot pursuit. Unfortunately sage got in the way of my perfect photo! The other two cheetah ran, but they all gave up a couple of hundred metres later and the impala ran off. It was an incredible sighting, both for the tactics and the proximity to the chase - the sound of their feet pounding the ground was amazing.

Valkyrie, one of my collared animals, decided on the 31st October to walk 30 km east towards the wet season range. This was after about 20 mm of rain fell over a couple of days. After spending 3 days there, she has realised her error and has returned to the floodplains. I will be going out to see if I can work out what changed her mind.