Fires!

At the beginning of the week, Shavaughn and I went flying with Guy to get an idea of the sizes of the herds that my collared animals were in. They were in herds ranging from 250 - 700, and we saw a few herds that did not have any collars in them as well. There is a lot of water out there, but we were also able to determine which areas I should still be able to access despite the high flood. Hunting season is also over, so I can now get into all the concessions again.

Shavaughn and I headed up the Gomoti on Wednesday into Moremi to collect some data from points used by Nokya. We saw a herd of buffalo on the way, and were able to age and sex around a quarter of them before something upset them and they took off. We headed further north than we had been before to try and ascertain whether we could cross onto a rather large island that has been used quite a lot by a couple of the herds. Unfortunately, the channel there is rather deep and muddy, so we will leave it for a while and try again when the water has started to subside.

We were able to collect data from a couple of sites before we had to return to HQ in a bit of a hurry. There have been fires around camp for a few weeks, but this week they started to get a bit too close for comfort. We were monitoring the radio, and when Dog Camp said that the fire was reaching them, I decided to abandon fieldwork and go and give them a hand.

By the time we got back there had already been one back burn lit, but we were on hand to try again that evening. Unfortunately there was not much wind, so that plan was abandoned. On Thursday night, we tried to back burn along the road towards Rhino Pan. We were going quite well, but again the wind died so we did not complete the whole stretch.

On Friday, we went out around midday towards Dog Camp, where the fire was getting close. We dragged acacia trees along the road for several hours to try and create a fire break. The wind then changed to our favour, so we back burned again, moving along from the place where the fire had stopped earlier. When the wind died we headed for home again.

Yesterday, we again went out around lunch time and just made it to the fire in time to stop it jumping the road and heading straight for Dog Camp. Again we dragged acacias to widen the fire break. We had to use the bowser to stop big flames and sparks from flying across the road, and we were beating the fire out when it reached the shorter grass. We managed to get that section under control, despite a small scare when a patch on the wrong side of the road started to burn. We then went to another section and waited for the fire to reach the road before beating it out. Once that was under control, we headed back to a patch between two burns that had not burnt itself. We lit a back burn there and got rid of that threat. That was when Keren exclaimed that we would be home early. However, on our way back we found another section that was heading straight for the road, so we called everyone back in and beat that bit down as well. Then we went home.

Today, there are still some fires to the south of camp that are flaring up, so we are keeping an eye on them. There are others further away, but they seem to be heading away from all the camps so we are happy to just let them burn! Fire is an important part of the natural cycle of the bush, after all.

Hopefully the fires will die down soon and we can all get back to work, probably after a day of sleep. The the entire effort has been highly successful so far, and is by far the best team-building excercise I have ever experienced! (And I have discovered that setting fires for back burning purposes is a lot of fun!!)

Counting running buffalo

Earlier last week, Nokya made her way to our side of the Gomoti, so Shavaughn and I went out to get population dynamics data from her herd. We found her close to Black Pools in a herd of around 200-250. This herd was on the move, so we kept trying to outflank them to be in a position that they would walk past us. We were able to count the last quarter and some of the first ones. However, they spent a good deal of their time running, even when we were several hundred metres away. We followed them at a distance to try and get them to relax, but had to give up when they crossed water and just kept heading north into really wet areas.

We headed back down the Gomoti to the usual game drive areas and spotted another herd close to the crossing point, but on the other side. That herd was very relaxed and we were able to age and sex most of them (around 150-200). We started to head back but had to wait for a large breeding herd of elephant (at least 100) to cross the road and let us through.

Stuck on the Gomoti

It has been a little while since I added a blog. My parents came to visit and we had a lovely few days on mobile safari, with some really good wildlife sightings. It was lovely to have them out and show them where I work.

One of my collared cows, Bianca, that was seen on the Gomoti before I got back to HQ crossed back to the Santantadibe, but Shavaughn and I were able to collect some vegetation samples that they used on our side before they left. We sampled 9 sites in a morning, with a little off-road island hop to get to the last two, past some black herons using their wings to create shade and attract fish. The crossing we used was a bit sticky and I correctly predicted that we would get stuck on the way back. This was Shavaughn's first experience at getting stuck, but she started digging with gusto and we had gotten one wheel onto a rack when one of the local game drive vehicles drove past on their way to turn the water pump off. On their way back they came over and without a word other than Hello, they towed us out, which was much appreciated, although we would of course have done it ourselves with a bit more time!

Leopard

This last week I crossed the Gomoti and went into NG31 to get samples from Nokya, who has been spending most of the last month on the other side of the river and has just come onto this side in the last couple of days. We managed to get samples from several quite wet areas by island hopping and wading around trying to find non sludgy routes whilst keeping a wary eye out for the many hippos in that area. I now realise why using a mokoro in that area would be rather dangerous - there really are hippos everywhere! We found a non-collared herd of buffalo that were not hugely co-operative. They hid in bushes and when they did come out they ran straight across water in a big bunch, which was not conducive to accurate counts of sex and age. We camped out on an islands surrounded by hippos that were calling all night - I never realised quite how extensive their vocabulary is.

The next day we drove further north along the Gomoti, looking for places to get across to the sites that I wanted to sample. Unfortunately every time that I thought we might reach one we came up against a rather large hippo-filled channel. We stopped off at the Afriscreen filming camp as we were driving past and asked them about crossing the channel. They took us further up to where they thought was a crossing for that large channel. Unfortunately it turned out to be a backwater and we found a much smaller crossing on the way back. We sampled a couple of sites on our side of the channel but unfortunately had to give up on the other ones. It was useful to find out where we could get to for future reference. And on the way back we found a beautiful, very relaxed male leopard in a tree.

We came back across the Gomoti but I think that will be the last time I cross until the flood water starts to go down, as the sand bar in the middle is almost underwater and the water came up to my fuel cap. Nokya had crossed over as well, so we went to get population dynamics from her herd, close to Black Pools. We found another herd close by and managed to age/sex 500 animals between the two herds. As I was calling out age/sex for the first herd, I spotted a male lion sticking his head up from sage behind the herd and looking rather interested. However, by the time I had finished my count I could no longer see him and when I went to look for him could not find him. The second herd managed to leave a calf behind, so the lion might have found him a bit later but not while we were there.

Counting buffalo

Earlier this week one of my collared cows, Lasanya, was on the Gomoti in a location that I knew would be accessible. She was on the other side of a main channel, but we could see the herd very well from the Moremi side. It worked out better than us following them as they seemed to feel less flighty with a decent volume of water between us and them. The first herd we found I estimated to be between 400-500 animals and I got data on age/sex/body condition for 247 individuals. The signal from the collar was coming from further north, so we continued and found another herd of a similar size, where I got data for 265 individuals. Earlier that animal was in a larger herd that was probably these two combined. We continued along the Gomoti to see if there were any other herds in the area and found a small herd of around 70 animals, and I managed to get data from almost all of them.

Lasanya then crossed to Black Pools, which is fairly inaccessible by vehicle (we tried unsuccessfully) and spent a few days in that area before crossing the land tongue again back to the Gomoti and heading north. A couple of days ago we followed the route that she took and got vegetation samples from the sites that she used.

Lasanya and Nokya are currently in the northern part of the Gomoti. Chanel is still further up to the west of Mboma. Bianca is on the Santantadibe, not too far from the buffalo fence.

Bianca goes exploring

Last week I went across into NG32 and Chitabe. One of my collared cows, Bianca, walked up to the top of Chitabe and back down again, so I wanted to follow her route and take vegetation samples from the sites that she passed through (see map above). We got permission to go into NG32 but there was a hunt starting a day later so we only stayed 2 nights in that concession, mostly on the floodplains next to the Santantadibe. Bianca spent a lot of time walking, when most of the time herds move more slowly, grazing as they walk. This was good because it meant I could get samples of vegetation that she walked straight through, which is what I record as ignoring habitats.

After two nights in NG32 we headed up into Chitabe and stopped by the camp to say hello to one of the managers that I had previously met in town, and to let them know we were in the area. There was a big elephant right next to the office who successfully negotiated a very tight turn between the end of the ramp leading to the guest quarters and the office. We were given coffee and told to get in touch with them if we had any problems.

We followed the route that Bianca took to the north and eventually reached the point that she reached after walking 6 km in 4 hours, after which she rested for an hour and turned around to walk back south. We sat and tried to think like a buffalo and work out why she turned around at that point, but did not succeed. She got there at midnight, so it is unlikely that she was offended by the view. There were zebra and tsessebe grazing across the channel that was close by and several of my other herds have spent time in that area. She has now walked further south into a different area that she has not used previously, but is moving more slowly around that area.

There are several possible explanations for the movement pattern shown by Bianca. From the amount of faeces at the various sites, she was in a herd smaller than 100 individuals. They could have been a dispersal group trying to move into a different herd. They could also have been somehow comparing the quality of grazing in the area that they left with that in the area they walked to. If so, they may well make the trip again at a later stage.

A lion amongst buffalo

Lasanya and Nokya were on the Gomoti earlier this week so I took the opportunity to go out and get some population dynamics data from the herds. Nokya turned out to be in an inaccessble area, but we came across a different small herd of around 50 that we counted in addition to the herd that Lasanya was in. That herd was rather large, to say the least. We tracked the collar and saw some buff on an island so drove around it to get a better look, only to realise that there were buff all around the edge of the next island as well. We spotted a young male lion strolling amongst the buff, hoping to snatch a calf I presume, although the buffalo did not seem too concerned by his presence.

We drove around the next island and saw a large group on the other side, but managed to age and sex 239 individuals as they crossed a small patch of water. The lion then crossed behind them and we continued to follow them.

We saw large numbers of buffalo crossing another, much deeper channel that we were not able to cross, though watching them cross was an impressive sight! They were heading across towards the other side of the Gomoti so we crossed back over to our side and drove up to see if we could find them from that side. We found them, but it was starting to get dark.

I just got back from Maun, where I chatted to pilots who have seen the herd that I was with, and they all estimated its size at close to 1,000 animals. I think that we saw about 600 - 700 animals, but there were likely to be more. A herd of that size is almost impossible to count from the ground, and the estimates from several pilots agree, so I think it is safe to stay with that number.

Lasanya has now moved south on the Gomoti and is close to the fence. Nokya is on the other side of the Gomoti, a bit north of the cutline. Chanel is on a large island to the west of Mboma. Bianca decided to return to the Stanley's areas after her foray into Chitabe. She appears to have followed the road at Chitabe for a few days, then turned around and headed back to places that she knows. I intend to go out this week to samples sites that she walked through and see what habitats she was in before deciding to turn around.