Misty morning

Last week, Roz and I went out to sample from three collared animals. I was considering going for the one up on Chief's Island, but after reviewing her movements for the previous two weeks, I did not think that I would get enough samples to justify the trip.

We went across to Daunara gate first, to sample from Pandora. I went that way a couple of weeks ago, and was amazed by how much higher the water level was this time. The area was fairly dry, and it did not seem like there had been much rain recently. However, one of the roads that I had hoped to take was completely flooded, with water flowing through mopane shrubs, which was rather surprising. Unfortunately Pandora herself was across this flooded area, and by the time we had negotiated it she had begun walking in what appeared to be a determined manner. Therefore we turned around and headed back out, stopping for the night close to the fence. There were two big elephant bulls in the grassland next to our campsite, but they seemed relaxed and did not bother us. In the middle of the night I was woken up by something rummaging in our vehicle. I sprang out of bed and shouted at what I can only assume was a hyaena, since I only heard the creature running away and did not get a visual.

The next day we left the campsite and found the whole world shrouded in mist, which is unusual and made for some quite surreal scenery. We drove across to the Kazikini area to sample from Jezebel. We were driving through some open mopane when Roz said she could see elephants, at the exact time that the one she hadn't seen trumpeted from 50 m to our right, as it was running towards us. Luckily it changed its mind and settled for a head shake then relaxed completely, so that we ended up sampling two points that were close together whilst watching the elephants for adverse reactions to the noise generated by our sampling techniques. We found Jezebel resting on the edge of dense mopane, and tried to get a good visual, but of course the herd kept running away into thicker vegetation. After chasing them for a suitable amount of time, I moved on to the next point, only to drive into another group. This happened several times, so the herd must have been huge, but just spread out into little pockets. At that point I was dreaming of a small personal helicopter that would allow me to fly over the herd and count them properly. One day....

We camped in some beautiful open mopane, going to sleep to the sound of hyaena calling and elephants shouting, but no one disturbed us. We drove up to Mababe and got the last few samples from Valkyrie. The vegetation up there is too dense to see anything unless it is at a pan, so we did not find her. As we were heading out, we did disturb a rather large breeding herd of elephants that were bathing in a pan. They ran off along the road, which was not particularly useful, since they then slowed and just milled all over the road. After about half an hour of waiting for them to move off, I decided to take a chance and try to drive through. We made it into the middle of the herd, then saw 4 animals walking down the road in front of us. The vegetation was elephant height, so I slowly eased myself out of the car to try and see where we were in the herd. I saw grey backs pretty much all around us, but there was nothing for it but to keep following the ones on the herd and hope that they were in a good mood. It all turned out fine and they left the road, allowing us to pass through with only one trumpet.

We are off to Maun tomorrow to extend Roz' visa and for me to organise my next fundraiser, which is to be a human foosball tournament (obviously!), taking place on the 6th March.

Caught in a storm

Last week I flew to check on the two collars that have not been working. We picked up a signal from Medusa, double beeping, about 3/4 of the way up Chief's Island. The signal was coming from a similar location to the last fix that I got from the collar, and we did not manage to see any animals, but there was only one working antenna, so getting a precise fix for the signal was difficult. That collar sent one more fix through a few days later from a different location, so it is definitely still on a buffalo. Fury, who has the other collar, has been on the other side of the Gomoti for the wet season to date, but we flew the area fairly extensively and failed to pick up any signal. That collar also managed to send a fix through a few days later, but nothing since.

On Thursday, Roz and I set out for some baseline sampling to the east of HQ. A few hundred metres along the main Moremi road, we bumped into the Matthew's pack of wild dogs, 13 individuals lying all over the road. We stopped for a little while, but they showed no sign of moving, so we drove through them slowly, causing a couple of them to actually move out of the way of the vehicle! A kilometre further down the road, we found Goose, a collared leopard, walking along and scent marking, in his usual relaxed way. We took a few pictures and kept on going, until we found a large herd of buffalo close to Pecan Pan. In typical buffalo fashion, they allowed us to get into the perfect position to view several of them walking past, then all decided to run in the opposite direction. We tried to get a decent count, but had to give up eventually.

We managed to sample 7 out of 10 sites before the rain caught us. Roz spent the last few minutes on the 8th site shouting numbers representing biomass so that I could hear them above the sound of the rain. We raced on to the next site, but the storm caught up to us. I foolishly decided that I was already slightly wet, so continuing the sampling would be fine. I was quickly drenched, and the cardboard disc that is a highly scientific tool for measuring sward roughness turned into a cardboard flop. I managed to finish the site while Roz stayed relatively dry inside the car, recording the numbers that I shouted onto a mostly dry sheet of paper. We drove on to the final site and tried to wait for the rain to stop. At one point it eased, and we got out to sample very quickly, but I realised that I could hear chewing sounds that could only be coming from an elephant, which popped out of the bushes 50m away after a few seconds. So we let him move off, by which time the rain had started again. I just wanted to get it over with by then, and it was already 17.30, so I donned Roz' waterproof (which she had neglected to mention until then!) and did the sampling as quickly as possible. By the time I was done, the rain had eased slightly, so we put on some dry clothes and headed for home. Mission accomplished!

Sampling

Last week I went out to sample from four of my collared animals. One of them, Fury, had shown an unusual fix on the collar, which had subsequently stopped working. We started by tracking for that collar and going to the most recent fix. We did not find the collar anywhere, despite searching the ground and tracking almost constantly. We sampled from recent fixes, and ended up spending the night there, going to sleep after hearing elephants trumpeting and fighting not too far away.

The next day, we went across to the Stanley's area to sample from Pandora. We were able to get a count of almost 200 animals as they were relaxed and in open mopane with good visibility. There were several very small calves in the herd. We camped out that night as well, after being pleasantly surprised by the accessibility of areas despite significant rain. The next morning, we headed out and I caught a glimpse of the tail of a lion as it ran across the road. It turned out to be a mother and two youngsters, but they were skittish so we were unable to get photos or get close to them. We continued and found two hyaena as well.

We drove around to the area used by Jezebel, close to the Kazikini hunting camp, and picked up a signal almost straight away. The herd bolted soon after I got to them, and kept walking through dense vegetation, so I decided to cut my losses and continue grass sampling instead. We sampled several vegetation points and headed back to the road through fairly heavy rain. The next day we went up to Mababe to sample the last few points from Valkyrie, which all went smoothly. We passed several termite mounds covered in lovely butterflies.

I will try to fly this week to see if the VHF is working on either Fury or Medusa, the two collars that have stopped sending fixes, then try and find the funds to remove these defective collars.