Post-migration sampling

I came into camp on Wednesday with Jennifer (my new assistant) and we went out to do some fieldwork that afternoon, so her first night in the bush was spent fly-camping. We did hear lions, hyaena and jackal, but she reacted very well and managed to sleep fine. We stopped off on the way back from sampling to see Binti, one of the collared cheetahs who was just off the road we were taking. Jennifer has wanted to see a cheetah for a long time, so she was very happy! We later saw Krystal with her cubs feeding on a zebra carcass.

We were collecting samples from some of the migration points and then the post-migration points. We did some sampling near Kazakini hunting camp, then headed across into NG43, into the mopane and grasslands there. We saw lots of evidence that buffalo were around, with tracks and faeces everywhere. I got a signal from the satellite collared animal that I knew was there, but not from any of the others. We did not go to find her, as I am trying to leave a gap of a couple of weeks between the end of last season and the beginning of this season. I want to be sure that the buff have been in the wet season area for a couple of weeks before I record population dynamics data, as any changes between seasons will not happen overnight. We did see a herd, which was nice to show Jennifer, but I left them to wander off through the lovely dense vegetation that I had started to forget about during the past few months that I spent in floodplains.