Kevin arrived on Sunday in his lovely yellow SkyJeep, and took me up tracking on Monday afternoon. We picked up all the buff whose location I was already aware of, but failed to pick up any signal from the last three missing animals. Unfortunately I have not been flying much lately so am not used to it and felt fairly nauseous at some points, but generally enjoyed the flight.
On Tuesday, Janette and myself went to sample sites used by Chanel before she moved further west. She walked approximately 10 km over a day, stopping on the way. We sampled twelve sites used before the movement and a couple of the points that she walked through on the way. She has stopped in grasslands on the other side of the Moremi cutline, so has not completed her walk back to the floodplains. I will wait for this before completing the sampling for the migration. I have had several reports from pilots that they are seeing more buffalo on the floodplain systems, but the grass is still quite green in the grasslands, so the buff should not be in too much of a hurry to leave them.
Janette is currently flying with Kevin to check that B74, the double-beeping collar, is still on a buff, since all of the other collars from that original batch have fallen off. It would be useful if this one did the same, since it is not functioning properly anyway.
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