Musical vehicles

6-26

Due to vehicle break-downs, we've been playing musical vehicles lately.  During the class, Elisha and I had mainly been using Zoey, Todd's baby (a bright orange land rover) because he trusted no one else to use her.  We also from time to time used Kermit, (the bright green land cruiser), but mainly his field assistants use that one.  He just finished getting Betsy (a baby blue toyota pickup) fixed, so now that Todd is back, Betsy is what Elisha and I will be using as Todd will start using Zoey.  Betsy is quite roughed up as she's been flipped upside down in a river and nearly completely buried in sand. Today Kermit was getting some repairs and Todd's field assistants needed to use Betsy, so Elisha and I got to use the mechanics fancy land cruiser which has a big old red rhino horn on it.  So that was pretty cool.

This past week, we had to say goodbye to Sid.  I took the Palmer lab (Kirsten, Sid, Patrick, Elisha, and I...Todd was on vacation on the coast) out for a cool last sundowner for Sid near the north of the ranch to a big rock outcrop called Lizard rock.  It's a really beautiful rock outcrop with a tree growing on the top.  It involves some rock climbing to get to the top and has great views around.  There's also a huge troop of baboons that lives up there, and it was amazing to see how good at rock climbing they were.

During our veg surveys this week, Julius happened upon a baby dik-dik hiding in the grass.  As it could hardly walk, he easily caught it, and we all got to hold it.  Dik-diks if you remember are the smallest antelopes in the world, so you can imagine how tiny their babies are.  Also this week while doing observations in the exclosure, we heard a leopard grunting right outside the fence, which was pretty cool.

Tonight we packed the station into the classroom to watch the USA-Germany game.  All the Kenyans seem to watch every game (they bought satellite TV just for the world cup) which start around 7 here and go until 3am, but for this game as it was the early game, all of the researchers were watching it as well.

6-29

A couple of days ago we had some super wealthy people fly in from Nanyuki (just a bit over an hour by car!) to check out the research station for an afternoon.  They flew in 5 small planes and landed at the big airstrip.  It was funny b/c they were totally decked out in the safari gear that you see in the fancy magazines.  They came and listened to brief presentations by the main researchers (like Todd) before taking a quick game drive and flying back to their hotels in Nanyuki.  Besides some entertainment for us, it meant free soft drinks and beer for us, which was a nice surprise.

Last night Todd and Kat had us over for sunset, drinks, and dinner (the house comes with a cook!) at the fancy house they are staying out.  They are staying at a place called Jenga house which was originally built as a retreat for the inventor of the game Jenga.  It's not called Jenga house because it's wobbly like the game Jenga!  It was fun hanging out with them before they leave and we had lots of good laughs.  Tonight they invited the Palmer Lab (so Kirsten and Pat too) over for sunset and drinks.  Again a fun time.  And one of the surprisingly nice things (especially for Elisha) is that since their house has a fridge, we had ice in our drinks.

Sundownder

Zoey and our Sundowner rock

the baby dik-dik we caught

me on top of the sundowner rock

Our 3 vehicles.  Zoey, Betsy, Kermit (L to R)

The Palmer Lab's 3 vehicles.  Kermit, Betsy, and Zoey

Drama at River Camp and Close Encounters of the Wildlife Kind

6-19

I got invited down to a special meeting with Todd and Wayne (the other field school leader) a couple of nights ago.  We sat on the veranda of Todd's tent overlooking the river, and he made us fancy drinks.  The discussion was about the TA who had flipped the van.  Apparently the van mistake wasn't the only strike he had going against him.  He had been lazy, not keeping an eye out for wildlife while the students were in the field, etc.  The TA's are supposed to stay to work on independent research projects for a month after the field school, but Todd is considering sending him home.  He called me and Wayne in to discuss this.  It was interesting as it was the first time I've really been involved in such an important discussion as this.  I sort of tried to remain neutral b/c I didn't want to be responsible for leading to someone being fired and ruining their dreams, but I didn't also want to promote someone who could lead to his or other's safety being risked due to a lack of vigilance in the field.  Todd said if he stays, he needs him to be supervised and have a good example of hard work.  So he wanted to know if he would be helpful to my team.  The truth is, he really wouldn't, and I told Todd this, but I also said he wouldn't be a hindrance.  I haven't spoken to Todd in private in a couple of days, so I am not sure what the decision is, but I am interested to hear.  He seemed pretty upset (and worried, safety wise) with the guy, but Todd also forgives easy, so he wants to find a solution for the TA, so that he can be here and be helpful and be safe.

Also, the only male student on the trip ended up getting a terrible eye infection and being sent to Nairobi to a good hospital.  He was a good sport about it and looked pretty ridiculous with his eye patch

The students leave soon, and I think we will have one last sundowner with them tomorrow.  A couple nights ago we joined them for their Game of Thrones costume party.  They did a good job and Todd was pretty funny dressed up at Tyrian (sp?) with make-up and eye shadow.

The other day on our run around the circle road of camp (with the electric fence just near us), there was an elephant and her calf just on the otherside of the fence.  That's a pretty cool running experience.  And today while running, Elisha let out a little scream.  We turned around to see a little snake on the road that we had just run passed (as had Allison from CU just a few moments before).  It was very pretty and moved off the road with some stick prodding, but I am not sure what kind.  Also, today in our plots we were surrounded by elephants and other wildlife.  We were of course safe in the fence, but you'd be surprised how intimidating elephant sounds can be.  Elisha kept thinking they were lion roars or lions attacking Elephants.  Interestingly, last week a leopard had actually somehow managed to jump the tall electric fence and had gotten inside one of the exclosures.

Probably the best encounter of the week; however, was with lions.  The guys working on the "living with lions" project had located a pride of 6, plus 3 stragglers moving through Mpala on father's day.  They radioed us in and led us to a spot where we could see them across a ravine.  We watched them there for awhile before they moved towards a small water area.  We drove there next and were up really close to them.  A few were sitting on this dirt mound, just looking regal and not bothered at all by us. 

6/21
Today is the summer soltice back home and mid-winters night back at my other home (Antarctica).  Here, where we literally straddle the equator, we can experience both the longest day of the year and the longest night of the year at the same time.

Yesterday, we had some more good wildlife encounters. 

On our way to the plots, right outside of the research centre, we came across a herd of elephants that were not scared by Kermit in the very least.  They were just busy munching and tearing apart trees, just a few feet from us.  They had with them several young'ens but there was a super tiny baby that was probably about 4 to 5 days old.  Elisha called it a goat b/c it was so tiny.

We were working in the control (open) plot of UHURU North and a herd of Elephants came right up near where we were working.  The main herd stayed a bit off, but they are so loud that they seem to be right there.  A couple elephants wondered in really close, so that we could see them from where we were working.  Our field assistants kept a close eye on them and we made sure we knew where the car was and where the mega-herbivore (lets all animals in except elephants and giraffes) fence was, but we were safe b/c the elephants were down-wind of us and could thus smell us and would not be surprised by our presence and would keep their little ones away.  Also just outside where we were working was a herd of impalas, a herd of zebra, and a massive herd of maybe 40 giraffes, which we had fun watching when we were finished with work for the day, especially since the females appeared quite eager to mate, but the male who was going around sniffing and choosing was quite picky and just a tease.

Last night was the student's last night, so we had a sundowner at one of the view points.  Todd had the ascaris build up a big fire and he had purchases "fancy" plastic wine glasses and some boxed wine to toast the end to a successful class.  While we were chatting around the fire, watching the sunset, one of the students pointed out a hyena that had come quite close to check out all the commotion. 

On the way back to river camp our car got a really awesome view of a leopard that was just sauntering on the road in front of us and lit up by our headlamps.  It was a sweet full view of a leopard!  So now Elisha has seen all of the Big 5.

Todd threw a goat roast (2 goats) for the students, the kenyans who had helped out, and those of us researchers who had also helped.  It was a fun last night that eventually turned into a bit of dance party.

Today while we were working in the plots, there was a troupe of baboons making all sorts of a fuss right next to us, which made the day quite interesting.  With the students gone (and Todd and Kat vacationing on the coast), Kirsten, Sid, and Patrick invited us down to river camp for a sleep-over, in part b/c I think they were a bit nervous being there all by themselves.

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Leopard

Zachary

Peter

Elisha gets the "Queen" chair

The pollinator crew: Elisha, Me, JC, Zachary, Peter, and Julius

can you spot the leopard??

Teaching the students

Boot Camp and Teaching and Spooky Tuesday and Flipped Van(and leopard!)

6-15-14

Todd is a pretty physically fit guy and likes to inspire fitness in his students, so every other day he brings the willing students up to the research centre to do what he calls Dr. Todd's Boot Camp.  It involves lots of pull-ups, pushups, ab work and then sprints.  Although it's pretty challenging, it's fun because Todd is such an enthusiastic and supportive guy.  Whenever I do all of these things with Todd, I am so grateful that he is my advisor.  He's super intelligent, but he also loves life and see the importance of things outside of academia, and in fact, I think he leans away from it (he keeps talking about starting up a fishing guide company in Montana, but he's just waiting until he has some unsuccessful years, which really isn't likely to happen), which is good for me since I'm not too into academia either.  His bootcamp is a tamed down version of what he used to do when he was out here as a grad student, back when things were less regulated.  He used to regularly run up to the big airstrip (I think about 6ish miles from here) and mountain bike around, which of course now they wouldn't let you do b/c of all the wild animals.  But as he says, "it just made me run faster".  He still has a bike out here that he puts up on a bike trainer so he can pedal stationarily by the river outside of his river camp tent.  And the local guys around here still tell me they see Todd up at the big airstrip (having driven this time) jumping rope or riding his bike on the long dirt runway.  The animals are quite plentiful on the airstrip (that's where we saw the cheetahs), but it is more open, so you can see if there are elephant or buffalo around.

Todd also does something called Spooky Tuesday, which as it happens, never actually takes place on Tuesday.  He does it back in Gainesville, and it is an event he hosts where they watch a horror film and then make a signature cocktail.  He has brought Spooky Tuesday to Kenya and last week we he showed "30 Days of Night" in honor of Elisha and I as it is a vampire movie that takes place in the Arctic during the winter when the people are isolated, similar to the Antarctic.  We actually missed Spooky Tuesday last night because it was the Taiwan team's last night here at the Research Centre, so the centre hosted a cool Karaoke event.

A couple of days ago was my day to lead a teaching module for the UF undergrads.  I thought I was going to get away with Todd, Wayne (the other field instructor) and Kirsten (Todd's post-doc) not going as I told them to take the time off and rest, but they did come, so that made me quite nervous, though Elisha told me I did well.  But still, super scary to lecture in front of your advisor.  I took the students out to the Hippo pool to do the lecture in the grass under the shade of the yellow-fever acacia trees.  I lectured on biodiversity and conservation and then introduced the UHURU project and my project.  I then took them to the exclosure and control plots in both the North UHURU and South UHURU and had them do little field exercises to compare the different treatments and rainfall gradients.  On the drive between the north UHURU and south UHURU, the van I was driving got lucky to catch a good look at a leopard!

Yesterday, I had field work to do, but Elisha went with the class to an animal orphanage.  One of Todd's TA's took the vans up to the research centre in order to get gas for them and managed to flip the van on the rough roads.  These roads around here certainly do a number on the vehicles.

Mount Kenya looming in the distance