Low Pressure

Last post for tonight:

Today I went out with the group from Trinity.  We went to their 'low pressure' site, which refers to the level of animal pressure.  It was right by the community that's across the river from the park, so we drove up to the river and then were taken across in a boat by a man with a long pole that he used to push against the bottom.  We were looking for evidence of animals being there, specifically their dung.  We actually found two samples, one from a hippo and one from a genet, which was kind of unusual for this specific site. 

After staying in the park itself for six weeks, it was really cool to head over to the community side and be reminded that there are people who live right here, not just the animals I see every day.  As we walked through the village, we said hello to everyone and they all said hi back (very enthusiastically, in the case of the kids).  Many kids followed us around while we were walking, talking and laughing and just being excited kids.  At one point we stopped to take pictures, and we had a whole group of women and children come over who were very interested in me taking their picture.  Which I did, and they had a really positive reaction when they saw the pictures on my camera.       

Looking for poop

A farm in the village, supported in large part by the agriculture project at Gorongosa

TJ, me and Cat

Huge baobab tree in the village

I'm on a boat! On the way home. Trying to even out my horrible farmer's tan

I really enjoyed going out with them today.  Oh!  Something really cool happened last night!  Fredrik, TJ and I drove out to Hippo House because Fredrik hadn't seen it yet and he left this morning.  On our way, we saw a HONEY BADGER.  They're super rare to see, I think mostly because they're nocturnal but also because they're just not super common.  When I saw it, I kind of screamed because I was so excited.  It was awesome.  And it wasn't a questionable sighting, like 'well maybe that was a honey badger?' It was decidedly a honey badger and we saw it in enough daylight to see it well.  So, so cool.

That's it from me for now.  (I think that's enough)

Starting to plan out the rest of what I'll get done before leaving, as there are now less than two weeks until I come home,

Good night!

Leão sighting take two!

Guys guys guys!

We saw lions again!  I was out with Kaitlyn and Cat (one of the grad students here from Trinity College in Dublin, working on her masters).  We were just about done with our work for the day, and were about to head back to Chitengo.  We saw a Girassol safari vehicle stopped and looking at something, and at first we thought it was just the sunset (Girassol is the tourist side of Gorongosa).  But then we saw three lions lying in the grass by the vehicle, and we went over to look at them.  There were two males and a female, and they were all on the young-ish side.  We watched them for a while, and then followed them when they crossed the road.  They were playing around with each other, rolling around on their backs and chasing each other.  It was incredible.  I was just smiling the whole time we were watching them.

One of the males is on the right, and I'm not sure which of the other two is female/male. 

I'm a ferocious lion

Hey, hey...

Hey guys...what about me?

*sigh* That's better

:)

Photo Update

Hello!

It's been a while since my last update, and I'm about to put up three posts to catch up.  This post will pretty much just be some pictures that I thought were interesting and want to share.  

This was probably the biggest poop I have ever seen.  In my life.  Any guesses on the species?  I'll stick the answer at the end of the post.

A lilac breasted roller.  A very pretty bird.

Don't know the species, but this is a cool frog we found in one of the camera trap cases (the cameras have metal boxes that you put them out in for protection) when we were collecting the SD card.

Oribi--the smallest antelope in the park.

Oribi in action

Sunset on the floodplain

Sunset from Hippo House

An armored katydid.  So cool

Pretty big bug

Watching waterbuck, something I've spent a lot of time doing recently

Bushbuck on a mound!  They like to spend time on the mounds because they provide shade, better nutrition (usually--not really this particular mound), and a good vantage point.

That's some of what I've seen/been doing recently.  In case you're wondering, the photo of poop at the beginning of this post was from buffalo.  A very large male.

Hope everyone in NJ has been handling the heat alright!

Leão sighting!

Guys guys guys!  

I saw a lion today!  I went out with Kaitlyn this afternoon, and we were almost done with the work we were doing when the guard who was with us said he saw a lion.  We drove over and didn't see anything at first.

This is a picture of the lion, I swear.  The black spot in front of the middle of the tree is the tip of her tail.

We drove closer and got a better view.  As we approached, she got up and walked a few paces before lying back down.  She was limping pretty badly, so Kaitlyn called back to camp to notify Paola (the manager of the Gorongosa Lion Project), who said that we were probably seeing Tripod, a three-legged lioness.  Appropriately named, right?  Tripod is the oldest known lioness in the park at 14, and she hasn't been seen in over a year.  Ahh it was so cool.  We got so close to her, which she wasn't super happy about.  She is, in Paola's words, 'snarly.'  

So close.

Lion sighting = very good day.

Going to bed soon, goodnight!

The week in review

Hi!

Not so late tonight, so I'm going to catch up on what's been happening here at Gorongosa.  Let's see.  In order to avoid a boring review of each day, I'll make a list of things that happened (slightly less boring, right?).  In no particular order, my week:

1. Poop was collected (kind of a given here).  We found a whole group of buffalo and got a bunch of samples from them, which was great because we didn't have too many samples from them before.  

2. Behavioral observation methods were piloted and then put to work.  So many waterbuck.  So much resting and eating (so far what they do 90% of the time I watch them). 

I swear he was posing.

3. Termite mounds were surveyed.  So many thorns/sharp things.  

4. Waterbuck were observed eating specific plants--very exciting.  It's awesome when I can go over to a plant and see exactly where the animal I was just watching was eating. 

Waterbuck herbivory!

More waterbuck herbivory

5. The truck's battery died and resulted in an unintentional day in camp. 

6. Board game night was held (Jungle speed was played--everyone should go buy it, it was so much fun)

7. A 'safari' was taken to the river, where we saw many crocodiles, a hippo, and a bunch of cool birds. 

Coming out of the water

A Goliath heron (left) and a Grey heron (right).  Apparently the Grey herons here are about the same size as Great blue herons at home, which gives you some idea of how huge the Goliath heron is. 

It's electric?

The crocs just sat there with their mouths open, which is apparently a method of thermoregulation--the same type of thing dogs are doing when they pant. 

We saw some eles on the way home! They were super close to the road

He was smelling us

8. Camera traps were moved to photograph other areas of the floodplain.

9. The thorniest leaves I have ever seen were spotted. 

The leaves had thorns.  The leaves.  It's a species of Solanum

10. Taylor Swift videos were watched.  (I know--not very exciting and not to do with my research, but she had two concerts in NJ this past weekend and a lot of people I know went to go see her.  The shows looked like they were amazing)

That's a good chunk of what happened this week.  

Also, a picture of my cookies from the Fourth:

I was very proud of them, given the lack of access to many kitchen supplies I usually use when making cookies. 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Good night!

Fourth of July

...a little late, I know.

I hope everyone at home had a great holiday weekend last weekend!  I'm working to get caught up on here, so this post is about what we did on the Fourth.

We worked in the morning, out on the floodplain to scout sites for a project that Jen is going to be working on.  Then we went out to Hippo House, which is an old abandoned building that overlooks the lake/floodplain and used to be a restaurant/bar for tourists.  Here's a link of what the building used to look like and there are some pictures below of what it looks like now.

We had a picnic on the porch and just hung out for a while, watching the warthogs, waterbuck and many birds that were visible.  In the evening we had a bonfire with burgers and a vegetarian sausage for me (thanks Kaitlyn!), which was really nice.  Oh!  And I made cookies--chocolate chip trail mix cookies that were apparently very yummy.

It's getting late here and I've got a full day in the field tomorrow, so I'm going to head to bed very soon.  I'm going to try to update from this past week and get some more photos up soon!

Good night!

Team Oribi

Hello!

Happy Fourth of July!  And happy belated birthdays to both of my parents--I love you both and can't wait to celebrate when I get home :)

I haven't posted in a bit, so I figured I'd get some of the photos from the last two weeks up on here.  And give a quick recap of that time.  I'll do another post soon, covering what we did today. 

Last week started with putting camera traps up in the floodplain.  Then Jen and I worked for the next six days on setting up our clipping experiment.  Clipping experiments basically try to mimic grazing on the plants in an area and see what the response is.  Obviously, there's more to grazing than simply the removal of biomass/leaves (like trampling and spreading saliva), but these experiments are generally a good way to get some idea of what's going on.  One of the treatments was 'light herbivory,' which we think might mimic what a small grazer does when eating on the floodplain.  One such small grazer is an oribi, so we all channeled our inner oribi when working on that treatment (hence Team Oribi).  

After finishing setting up the clippings, we spent a few days scouting sites for a project Jen's going to be starting and collecting fecal samples for analysis.  The plan is for me to get back to some behavioral observations soon.

We saw elephants on our way back from setting up camera traps!  They were running away.  Elephants here aren't super rare, but they also aren't very habituated to humans, so running into them can be dangerous. 

There are law enforcement officials working at the park, who are able to arrest any poachers found hunting within the park and collect their supplies.  This is a truck full of confiscated snares. 

The impala lily.  We drove by it and I thought it was really pretty. 

Out on the floodplain, seeing how the vegetation changes as you go from the road toward the lake.  It's very much not a clean/easy to understand gradation, and there are a bunch of edges between vegetation types. 

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday weekend.  Please watch some fireworks and go swimming for me! (I technically could be swimming here, but the pool is super super tiny)

Good night!