Island hopping in Chitabe

I came back yesterday from 3 days of fieldwork. Bambi crossed from our side of the Gomoti across towards Chitabe, then walked northwest so we went after her to sample the sites that she used along the way. There were several in the middle of the Gomoti that were inaccessible, and the Gomoti itself is far too high to cross, so we drove all the way down and up through Morutshe gate and NG32.

We picked our way around the flooded areas and got to several sites along the Gomoti in the very top of NG32 then followed the edge of the floodplains further north. The herd seemed to have walked along the edge of the land, so we were able to access most of the points along the way. Once we reached the top of the main land mass, I walked a crossing that I used last year and knew to be sandy. It almost came up to my waist, but given that I am quite short, this meant that it was still shallow enough to cross and the bottom was very stable, so we drove across, with just a dip that went over the bonnet. I expected the other side to be mostly flooded, but was pleasantly surprised that we were able to drive around fairly happily, with just a couple of muddy patches that I don't think anyone other than me noticed.

We found ourselves thwarted by a large floodplain at one stage, but managed to find a way around it and cross the channel at a narrow point, where buff had crossed, which was also lovely and sandy. We made our way from island to island, hopping channels and driving across mostly dry floodplains, sampling several points on the way and only upsetting a few hippo. However, we reached a point where things started to get a little wet, so we decided to call it a day and head back south. We spotted a small herd of buff on the way, but they were across a large floodplain, so we just got a quick count. We did not pick up any signals from my collared animals, but Bambi had just kept moving north, so that was not unexpected.

We stopped off at Chitabe on the way down, where they kindly invited us to spend the night, which was very pleasant. They have been making ID kits of the leopard in their area, and have 21 individuals identified with photographs, as well as rough territories from the roads that they have been seen on. They had some interesting information about one of their males babysitting cubs for several hours, which I had not heard of before. The next day we continued back to camp, going all the way around again. We sampled a few more points on this side of the Gomoti and arrived back in camp just before sunset.

Starter issues

Janette and I went across to the Boro a few days ago to collect samples from Bongolo . We got into the area where she had been and started tracking but did not pick up a signal, so went to the first sampling point and started collecting grasses. I called HQ and got a fix on the herd, only to realise that we had gone past them earlier. We returned to that fix and did not pick up any signal from Bongolo, although I did get a weak signal from B7. We played hide and seek with them for a bit in a riparian band, but eventually managed to age and sex around 220 of them, including seeing Bongolo, so she was definitely in the herd. I wanted to get a visual of B7 to see if the collar still had its GPS unit on it, but were unable to get a sighting of her.

When I went to start the car again, the starter motor made a strange noise and refused to engage. I called camp and was told to change it for the spare that I carry, so I did that and she started, slightly reluctantly. By this time, it was starting to get dark, so we quickly collected some wood and set up camp. The buff had moved off, but they decided to come and have a look at us while we were cooking. It was slightly eery, to shine a torch and get hundreds of eyes staring back at you, but of course I was happy.

The next morning the car took a few tries to start, so I decided that we would leave her running all day and get as many samples as possible before heading back. So we set off to see where we could get to in the floodplains. We got a total of 11 samples, which was not as many as I had hoped, but quite a few were inaccessible, although if my car had been 100% I would have taken a few more risks. We bumped into the herd a couple more times, and both VHF signals were strong on those occasions so I guess it was just a temporary problem.

We called it a day after the last sample and headed back down the main road from Stanley's airstrip. Some water crossings had dried up completely, whilst others had appeared. The longest crossing was over the bonnet for a while, but it is very sandy, so I have never had any problems getting through. There was a new one that looked like it had a road going around, but it petered out after a bit. I reversed to turn around, then something caught my eye and I noticed a large male lion hiding in a little bush.

We continued down the road without incidents and were coming up the road towards HQ when we spotted a lioness at Elephant Pan. The radios were not working, so I could not call her in, but I thought it might be useful to Dog Camp to get ID pictures of her. By this time it was dark, but we had a spotlight so we made our way across to her and got pictures of both sides of her face for whisker spot IDs. I then pulled off to go home, and fell straight into the largest hole I have ever had the misfortune to find myself in. The front wheels came out again but the back wheels got stuck and the car stalled, which was something that I had been avoiding all day. Luckily she started again with a bit of persuasion and popped out of the hole quickly, otherwise we would have spent a rather uncomfortable night in a hole next to a lioness, since the radios were out and there would not have been anyone available to answer any telephones!