Adventure is out there.

Hey all,

I arrived at my study site on Tuesday afternoon and immediately began organising my equipment and set out to check out some of my camera station sites. This place is absolutely beautiful and has such a unique landscape! There is a little research camp here where I am based out of. I have my own little ‘house’ which is a concrete building fitted with two single beds, a cabinet, working desk and ample space for my equiptment. At the research camp, there are also communal bathrooms, a shower room, kitchen and outdoor braai area. As far as field camps this one is set up quite comfortably! I share the communal areas with other researchers and volunteers.

Wednesday morning started bright and early. Another Panthera team member, Gareth, joined me to help with the initial set up. Right away we hit morning traffic. You know, the usual traffic when living in the bush in Southern Africa – a big ole’ bull elephant was taking his time utilising the convenience of having a nice road to walk down. You may have noticed that we set many of our camera stations up on roadways. This is not just for our convenience, many roadways here were made from old game trails. Also, for the animals it is easier walking down a (quiet) cleared pathway then trekking through the bush, and so they travel quite frequently on roadways and paths.

We did the only thing you can do when stuck in traffic – sit and wait. He was truly magnificent though, so neither of us minded. Throughout the day we had some more ele traffic along with a group of giraffes hanging out under the shade of a tree blocking the road (they moved off pretty quickly, but were quite interested in watching when we stopped to set up a camera station).

It was a HOT day, 43°C (that’s about 109°F), which is wayyyyyy different to the 16-20°C Cape Town weather that I have just came from. I think I might be skipping spring and going straight into summer here! We set up 20 camera stations, with two cameras per station. We set up two cameras facing each other to capture both sides of the animal as it passes through. This enables us to use the pelage patterns to identify individuals. The station locations are predetermined prior to the survey and we use the same locations year after year for data consistency.

You can see a camera on the left-hand side and if you look down the path you can see the other on the right side. 

Thursday morning, we headed out to do our walk-in stations. While many of our stations are along roadways, some stations are also 1-6km into the bush. Since this area has some potentially very dangerous animals, we walk into these locations with an experienced ranger who knows this area very well. The walk-in stations are my favourite to set up; there is just something magical about walking through the bush. You don’t necessarily see more animals, since most are much more skittish seeing a weird two-legged animal as opposed to a vehicle which they see often and have gotten habituated to. However, you get to see the smaller details. We walked along a trail used the night prior by a pride of lions and followed their prints in the sand for quite a distance. We found a tiny little chameleon hanging on to a blade of grass, bones from a nyala that had been bleached pure white by the sun and quills dropped by a porcupine as he made his way down the game trail. My heart is always happiest when I am in the bush.

We finished setting up the survey (32 stations in total) that evening and it officially started at midnight. The survey will run for 45 days. Once a week I will visit each camera to change batteries, download the images from the week and replace any cameras that may have been damaged or stolen by animals. I then spend a few days at the research camp doing admin: going through the images from the week for priority species as well as checking for any unusual or suspicious activity. Along with some other Panthera work that I brought along with me. Once the survey completes and we take down all the stations, we upload the images and you all at CamCAT (www.cameracatalogue.org) help us to classify all the species!

This guy walked right past the bakkie (truck), he is about 45 years old. 

I do not have internet connection here, however at base camp I do have cell phone service, so I hope to be able to post a blog entry for you all every so often to keep you up-to-date with my field work, share photos and to share any fun stories that may happen along the way. Also, feel free to post any questions that you may have and I will respond to them when I can!

How is it almost mid September already? Where has this entire year gone to? Craziness.

I had such an incredible weekend!! Two good friends of mine from CCF (you might remember them, they visited me not long ago), Tarik and Mel got married! It is definitely something that has been in the plans for a long time now (they have a son together), but Tarik (who is South African) has been struggling to get a UK Visa to move to Wales (where Mel is from) with his family. So boom, they got married and now he can apply for a spouse visa. This was all within about two weeks worth of planning. Luckily for me they decided to have the wedding near Durban which is on the other side of South Africa and it is super cheap to fly within the country. I left Friday morning and flew in to Durban where I met up with Tairk and Mel…… and Samara!!! Woot, my Brazillian BFF from CCF. She moved to Botswana about two weeks ago and was able to fly down for the wedding too!

We helped get things orgranised and everyone hopped in a SUV and headed up to the wedding location about 5 ½ hours north of Durban at Lake Sibaya. The wedding guest list was small and intimate – Lake Sibaya is literally in the middle of no where and we camped the weekend there. Saturday morning everyone woke up and worked together to prepare food for breakfast and for lunch after the ceremony.

The campsite was close but still a bit of a hike to the lake so we hopped on top (literally ON TOP) of a Land Rover and drove out to the picturesque Lake Sibaya. For the ceremony everyone sat barefoot in a small circle on the sandy beach of the lake and shared stories about Tarik and Mel’s relationship and love, they exchanged their vows and were married by their dear friend, Paul. It was absolutely beautiful and such a wonderful, relaxed ceremony. Truly unique and so perfect for them. After that we ate an Ethiopian style lunch of injera (Ethiopian flat bread) with lentils, beet root, wat, tsebhi and various other veggies as music was played by portable speakers. On the opposite side of the bank you could see hippos basking in the sun (my first wild hippo sighting!!!!) The evening was spent back at the campsite dancing, sharing stories and enjoying each other’s company.

I woke up early Sunday morning and went on a little walk barefoot through the bush with a random kitty companion who decided the join me. It was so refreshing to relax and think as I watch the sunrise. I missed being in the bush more than I realised.

As the rest of the group started to wake up and move around we cooked breakfast over the fire and played a fun round of Kubb. Its a game from… Switzerland (I think) where basically you knock over sticks with sticks. We use to play at CCF all the time. Sam and I packed up and headed back to Durban with Yusuf and Zaheer. Zaheer took us down to the beach and gave a wonderful little tour of Durban. We even saw some hammerhead sharks that had come off the ocean and into one of the little inlet canals! I had planned to go to bed early that night, but couldn’t resist one last night of chatting and catching up with Sam. Monday morning came quick though and I had to hop on a 6am flight back to Cape Town and then made my way straight to the office just in time for a full work day. Exhausted, but completely worth it!

I am heading back that way, just about 40km or so from the lake on Monday at a reserve called Tembe, where I will be living and conducting my field work for the next six weeks! I absolutely cannot wait. My soul longs to be back in the bush. I will have extremely limited internet access, so I may be able to do a post every now and then but there is also a chance you might not hear from me in about six weeks.

I hope you have a nice life. 😉

Well let’s make that move… number four is it? I have nearly lost count.

My wonderful little wooded escape turned out to be beautifully scenic and convenient for walking to work, but apparently living in the middle of nowhere while still be surrounded by a major city isn’t the safest option. In less than two weeks the house was broken into three times and I learned that the dark path I walk through the woods in the morning before the sun comes up is nicknamed “the rape path.”

I have terrible luck with housing here. But it is working out. I am currently staying at Gareth’s which is a bit of a hike to get into work but luckily he also works in town so we just carpool and it all works out! We checked out a lovely wine farm this past weekend, Durbanville Hills Winery. We got a biltong and wine pairing sampler. For those that don’t know and because I do not think I have explained it on here yet, though if I did already then oh well – but biltong is the southern (I think only southern, hmmm I have to go do some research now) Africa version of jerky but a hundred times better. It is not nearly as dry as jerky and often times you can get it in all sorts of antelope varieties (kudu is my favourite). I have fallen in love with a South African signature style of wine called pinotage which is a red wine developed in the 1920s from cross between Pinot noir and Cinsaut. It is absolutely delicious! I am still learning how to be a wine connoisseur but can’t wait to learn more as I am definitely in the perfect place for wine!

I cannot believe it is nearly the end of August already! Where has this past year gone?! I am getting closer to my field work survey and am getting excited for it! I am still working on the whole visa fiasco, but I think I am FINALLY actually making some progress (fingers crossed anyways.) Oh that reminds me, in South Africa they don’t say “fingers crossed” instead they say “holding thumbs.” *shrugs* NO idea where that one came from, but it’s fun to learn the little differences like that.

Joy and her husband, Sterling are in Cape Town on holiday all the way from Poolesville. She was super kind and brought a whole suitcase for me of little odds and ends that I left back home, new Playstation games (I HAVE LITTLE BIG PLANET 3!!!!!!), PUMPKIN BEER!! and lots of American sweeties like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Lifesavers for the office. It’s nice getting an extra large care package from home and dad did a great job getting everything together. Plus my fruitcake, Alice, sent the sweetest shirts, fun socks and new toys for Ryno (which he was ecstatic over)!!! Such a wonderful surprise! Thank you everyone! ❤ ❤ xoxo

I think the weather here is starting to warm up, we are having more and more warm days. I also noticed some buds on a tree the other day – spring is coming!! I am super excited for summer here, I cannot wait to go lay out on the beach and enjoy the warm summer sun. Apparently it doesn’t even get humid here either. This place is so perfect.

Well I have some camera trap photos to classify, so I best be going. But for now, enjoy some of my favourites from a study site I am working on in Southeast Asia!