Easter Egg Hunt! (kind of?)

OK, I don't think it actually counts as an Easter Egg Hunt, but today's field work certainly felt like one.  One in which there was no candy at the end, and the eggs were all super protected with lots of spines/thorns.  Or, even better, the eggs didn't actually exist.  All that's not to say I didn't enjoy myself, because finding these "eggs" was so much more satisfying than any egg filled with chocolate.  

We went out this morning to look for Solanum fruits.  I know I mentioned them before, but I'm not sure if I explained what they are.  They're a toxic invasive plant with green-grey kind of leathery leaves, and little bright yellow fruits (when they're ripe; when the fruits are unripe, they look like little watermelons).  Rob's been studying them for a while--see an article about his work here.  As you'll see in the article, most herbivores out here absolutely love the fruits of this plant.  Which means that finding them outside of the UHURU exclosure plots, where all herbivores have access to them, can be super difficult.  We ended up walking all the way around the perimeter of one block, looking for the fruits and we found none.  Then we drove around slowly for a bit, trying to see if there were any fruits along the road.  I spotted two different plants with some fruits on them, which we stopped to collect.  We'e still short a few fruits, so this hunt may continue...

There were even lilies for the egg hunt! The African version of the lily is so tiny.

We also found a super small tortoise while looking for Solanum fruits. 

Backing up a bit.  Thursday was a very lazy day at the center, with a sundowner in the evening.  It was at Wandering/Wondrous Point, which was beautiful.  

Friday morning I went out into the field again with Renata, and we collected the seeds we'd placed out on Wednesday to see how many had been taken.  We were also collecting seeds from trees, to be used in future experiments.    

The seeds always seem to be right out of reach.  And the shorter trees, that are more of a Katie-appropriate height, never have any seeds. 

This is my final weekend here, which feels very weird.  I believe that there is an adventure planned for tomorrow, so look for a post on that too. 

Finals should be about over by now, so congratulations to everyone who swam this morning! I'm sure you all did amazingly, and I can't wait to hear about it.