We've had several busy days doing fieldwork, but I finally found some time to download my photos and write a little bit about what we're doing. Basically, we're walking 1 kilometer transects looking for bones of modern animals on the ground; we're interested in comparing the "bone" community to the living animal community. Here are some photos of what we're up to.
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| We park our car by the side of the road before we walk transects |
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| Ella showing the guard we had on our first day what she was writing down in her field notebook |
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| Buffalo crossing the road |
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| Fire really excited at measuring her first bone of the season! |
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We also find a lot of animal poop on our transects. This is spotted hyena poop - you can tell because it's white from all the bones they eat.
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| We also often find footprints on our transects - these are cheetah footprints |
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| Ella striking a pose with a buffalo skull we found on a transect |
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| This is often my view on a transect - this is Kenny (left) and our main guard Isaack (right) |
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| A giraffe crossing the road behind our car |
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| The team walking a transect |
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| Kari investigating a den - jackals, spotted hyenas, aardvarks, and warthogs all use these holes |
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| Kenny is really into birds, so he spends quite a bit of time on transects in this position |
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| A whistling thorn acacia, a very common plant on the conservancy - those thorns are no joke! |
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| Isaack showing Kenny a bird, undoubtedly |
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| We've had a few really cold and windy mornings, as evidenced by Ella's attire |
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| Fire measuring a bone |
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| Me with Isaack giving the thumbs up |
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| Isaack is full of amazing information about the African bush. He showed us aardvark dung, which glitters (hard to see here) because of all the insects they eat. |
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| Crushed up glittering aardvark poop |
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| At the end of every 1 kilometer bone transect, before we turn around and walk the same transect back to the car (we often find bones we missed on the way out), Kari cracks open a can of Coke. We all enjoy this ritual now. |
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| This was an impala skull we found in a grassy hole |
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| I like taking photos of our car with the landscape |
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| Mount Kenya has been hiding behind clouds a lot, but we've had a few good views of it recently |
We all enjoy the animals we see on the drives to and from the transects, along with those we see while actually walking the transects.
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Black-backed jackal - there are a lot of these around these days. We saw one loping off with the leg of a Thompson's gazelle in it's mouth a few days ago!
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Elephant and buffalo
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| Elands, one of the largest antelopes in Africa |
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A giraffe attempting to hide behind a tree
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Zebra - did I mention that there are a lot of zebra?
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| A warthog striking a pose |
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This is a waterbuck - Fire's favorite animal out here
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Spotted hyenas hanging out at their den - we saw two little cubs that were so cute!
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| We finally saw a lion today - the light wasn't great for a photo, but he was a pretty impressive male |
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While we are out doing bone transects, Toby is having fun playing with Lucy (his nanny) and her daughter Kristen who often comes with her to take care of him.
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| Lucy and Toby with their LEGO city |
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| Lucy, Kristen, and Toby |
My birthday was last week - and Fire, Ella, and Kari made it awesome. We bought three boxes of brownie mix in town so everyone could celebrate with us (I mentioned previously that there is a group of volunteers here), and Fire bought fun straws to have fun drinks with. The kitchen staff decorated the cake and brought it out - with the candles that Fire saved from 2011 when we also celebrated my birthday here - singing happy birthday and "Jambo Bwana", which is basically a Kenyan tourist pop song, which I really enjoyed.
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| Toby and me with our fun straw |
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| My birthday "cake" |
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