It is our last day at Mbuluzi. We pull the traps and cameras this morning. Had some time for photo shoots. After lunch we headed for a soccer game against the locals. We lost to prevent an international incident :). Well that is our story and we are sticking to it. Lots of fun for us and the crowd. Leaving for Kruger park in the morning. Should be an exciting time with two night drives and a morning walk. usually not Internet available in Kruger so no update until we get back to Jo'burg. Outstanding group this year. Everyone doing great and having an exciting time. Well we have an interesting couple of days. Internet has been down for awhile. All good now, and everyone doing great. Small mammal trapping doing better. Seeing more animals every day. Lots of giraffe and Impala. Today we when up to a tour of the Shewala village. Wonderful day after a really bumpy ride. Great view. Last day tomorrow. We will pick up traps, pack our gear, and take some pictures. We head for Kruger on Thursday. Most interesting event was that a local stole our camp water pump. Unfortunately for him, he dropped his cell phone near the pump site . We hope to have the pump back tomorrow. Plenty of water but short showers :) Excellent day learning about trees, mammal tracks, and scat. We caught two one-lined mouse, a new species for us. Afterwards Mdu gave use lesions on tracks and trees identification. We then headed over to the cave. Quite an exciting climb and outstanding view. On the way back we stopped for a little ice cream surprise. First cold thing in days. Clearly a hit. Moved the trap lines today so hopefully we will see more small mammals over the next few days. Interesting round of species presentations after lunch and then Morgan, the camp coordinator, taught us about radio telemetry. We then sent out some runners with transmitters . We had a great time trying to locate them. LSU crew arrives tomorrow. Camp size will double but it should be fun. Spectacular sunset drive at Hlane Reserve. Four white rhino feeding, a pride of four female lions, and a single young male. The lions roared at sunset and a young elephant started to chase them. Quite an impressive sight from yards away. A chilly start this morning but warmed up nicely. Small mammal trapping still slow but should improve after we move traps tomorrow. Bird behavior groups doing well, seeing more species each day. Great way to learn the local birds and how to use a wildlife key. It was the morning of the impala. We saw at least 150 on the way out. Good view of warthogs too. And Mdu found us a nesting white-backed vulture to observe. Everyone is off collecting more ant lion data. From the photo you can see we are using the most high-tech equipment. But that is a major lesson in field biology: use whatever materials you have and it does not required $ millions to ask interesting questions. (That said, if you do have $$, research donations are always gratefully accepted - unabashed begging 😊). Heading soon to Hlane National Reserve. This will be our first chance to see elephants and hopefully lions when we take a sunset drive. Outstanding conversations by the campfire last night. Some really cultural exchanges / questions between us and our Swazi colleagues. We are getting a lesson in how to safely handle mice for identification and data collection. This is an African pouched mouse, one of three different species that we caught today. It will be released unharmed at its original location tonight. Interesting afternoon and evening in camp. Teams went out and gathered physical data from over 600 ant lion burrows. Plots of the data look very interesting so we will be doing more work this afternoon. The burrows are pointed north at a statistically higher % than expectation. We will be gathering x,y coordinate data today from colonies to look at distribution patterns. Fun research but hard on the knees :) last night's spotlighting was very successful. Night jars, Nyla, bushbuck, wildebeest, giraffe, Impala, a genet in a tree, and two servals walking. We still have not seen the usually zebra here which is a little concerning to the researchers. Mammal trapping is still slow but we did pick up 3 new species on a line near camp. We will let everyone identify them and release them tonight. Our attempt at dusting a mouse with fluorescing power and following it last night was a real success. Dr. Sundermann started the group doing parasite work today. They are doing amazingly well for many first timers. A group request was just voiced for a trip to town. Apparently candy and snack supplies are dangerously low :(. Never a good thing with this crew. We will head to town after presentations unless the impala drive happens today. |
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