The highly unusual rainfall that we had a couple of weeks ago, with close to 90 mm falling in 3 days, disrupted my planned fieldwork somewhat, since I had to give the ground time to dry up before driving off-road. Once it had stopped, I got a couple of reports of buffalo herds which I found to record age, sex and body condition. Once I had recorded the age and sex of most of the second herd, numbering around 400, I went in to collect faecal samples. The herd was still fairly close, so I was leaning out of the car to pick them up. I then spotted a lone cow on the other side of my vehicle to the main herd, looking rather upset. I saw movement, and realised that there was a very small calf next to her. I moved out of the way so that she could rejoin the herd, but she moved back towards her calf. I kept going, collecting faeces, only to see the cow again, looking very agitated. She charged towards my vehicle and veered off at the last minute, but then decided she had had enough, and put her head down, connecting with my car on the back right hand corner, where I now have some extra dents. I moved out of her way quickly, and saw that she still had afterbirth coming out of her, so she must have been giving birth whilst I was counting the herd. She rejoined the herd, and brought the tiny calf over, at which point several other animals came to greet the new arrival. I got the last couple of samples and moved off quickly to avoid disturbing them any more.
On Wednesday last week, Janette and I went out to collect data from Bongolo, one of the collared cows that has been hanging out on the Boro. When we reached the Thamalakane, we found a BDF truck that had managed to drive off the admittedly narrow bridge there. We were roped into assisting them, and lending them my highlift jack, which fortunately allowed them to free themselves after only an hour and a half. They went off to rescue another vehicle that had gotten stuck.
We made our way along the road that we usually take, which is barely visible and very little used, until we found it to be flooded. We cut inland to some other points that needed to be sampled, making our way around flooded areas on the way. As we were finishing with one point, I tried to start the car and the starter motor seized. I swapped it for the spare, but that one just whizzed in a very un-reassuring manner, so I took the first one apart, sprayed some lubricant, and put it back in. Luckily that did it and the car started, but by that time it was starting to get dark so we camped there. There were lions calling all night, but they seemed to be staying in mostly the same place the whole time. The next morning we headed further north, but soon came across long stretches of flood water. The road was sandy, so we drove through, but were thwarted by yet more water and had to give up on samples on the other side. We spent the rest of the day mostly being stumped by floodwater, where 2 weeks previously it had been bone dry, and was now up to my waist with a strong flow. As we were making our last attempt to get to sample points, we came across water yet again and were about to turn around, when Janette spotted something moving in front of us, which turned out to be a pangolin! We got a few pictures of it then let it go on its merry way.
We drove back to the Thamalakane, only to find that in 30 hours it had risen from the top of our wheels to being well over the bonnet. If the water continues to rise, I will not be able to cross that river, and my herd will become inaccessible. However, I am hoping to put out 5 more collars at the end of next week, which will help with finding sample points that I can reach.
