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.

Add caption

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

Safari to Ol Pejeda and Night Game Drive

6/14
Earlier this week we had the opportunity to do some cool trips with the UF students.  The first was a night game drive around Mpala using huge spotlights.  Mpala is unique compared to most game reserves and to all national parks in that you are allowed to be driving around after dark.  So this leads to some interesting night game drives as a lot of cool carnivores and other animals are nocturnal...cool things like ratels, anteaters, pangolins, several cats species, and several mustelid species.  On our drive we got lucky to see a cute little bushbaby (a nocturnal primate) jumping around through the tree as well as some genets and mongooses.  At a couple points during the drive, we stopped, turned off our lights and vehicles and Todd played recordings of different dieing animals to hopefully bring in the hyenas and lions.  We got lucky and in one place where we stopped, a large group of hyenas came in.

Elisha and I also had the opportunity to go to Ol Pejeda game reserve with the class.  This reserve is home to one of the largest densities of black rhinos and southern white rhinos in the world (both critically endangered species).  It is also home to 4 of the only 7 remaining northern white rhinos in the world.  Our trip here did not disappoint as we were able to see all 3 species, including a cute baby black rhino walking around with its parents.  In addition to the rhinos we saw huge herds of buffalo, elands, oryx, heartebeast, lots of cute little warthogs, and of course huge herds of gazelles, zebras, impala, and waterbuck.

On the trip we also visited a chimp sanctuary where we got to get up and close with chimps who were rescued from the pet trade.  The students had a lot of fun watching the chimps which of course did chimpy things like pick their noses and eat their boogers and throw dirt and poop at the students.  The funniest part was when the chimps (who are crazy strong) mock charged some of the girls and really scared them, even though they were separated by an electrical fence.  But it was also fun to hear the stories about the chimps who had devised clever ways to escape the electric fence using tools

The other highlight was getting to pet and fee Baraka, a blind rhino who they keep in captivity and to promote rhino conservation awareness.

The Ol Pejeda reserve is quite cool because it is doing an amazing job of protecting rhinos and other species while also working with locals to allow them to farm and graze and be not only sustainable, but make some money.  The reserve has also built corridors to allow animals from places like Mpala and Samburu NP to migrate in and out in order to promote genetic diversity.  It is a great example of successful conservation in action.

Some pictures below from our trip to Ol Pejeda as well as some photos around Mpala and the last one having some fun in our Land Rover with my field assistants on the way to our plots

lions and tigers and el shebab, oh my

6/5/14
Todd's field class has arrived.  They are staying at River Camp, which is an amazing place, about 15 mins drive from the research centre.  It's where I stayed on my field class to Kenya with Todd.

Elisha and I drove down last night to say hi to everyone.  Todd and Kat invited us over to their tent (safari style tent) for some drinks.  Tents at River Camp overlook the river and are shaded by the beautiful yellow-fever acacia trees.  They also invited us to eat dinner with them and then we met the students down at the fire-pit. 

The class had been a huge stress for Todd especially since the US issued a no-travel warning for Kenya.  But a couple of days before the class was to arrive, we got word that an El Shebab (the Somali terrorist group responsible for all the recent bombings in Kenya, including Westgate) vehicle was spotted outside of Nanyuki just 40 minutes from us.  The vehicle was an army land rover supposedly full of 6 camoflauged men.  This caused quite the stir at Mpala.  We all had to give the head of security our phone numbers, they doubled up security (which are basically just ascaris carrying sticks), and people reached varying levels of freaking out.  Kirsten looked like she may just pass out.  Kat was pretty scared and was carrying some large shears around.  Todd was joking a lot, but I knew he was nervous.  He didn't feel like his students would be at risk, but you can't take chances.  I was nervous and had some bad dreams that night about it, but I think Elisha wasn't concerned.  After leaving dinner that night, we had heard a lion roar quite close that caused us to turn around and then the 2nd roar caused us to run and get an ascari escort.  Elisha told me the next day, that it was the lion she has been thinking about.

The drama and El Shebab jokes/fear went on for another day.  Todd's group was set to leave in 5 hours and he was fretting on whether to cancel or not.  He had called UF, and they said, you're our man on the ground, you make the decision.  Then, a couple of hours before the deadline to pull the plug, after calling a bunch of higher up's, he finally found out what the whole thing was about.  It was all huge rumours.  Some guy had stolen a british army land rover and was trying to get it to Nairobi.  He had heard the police were after him, so he tried to bypass the road block at Nanyuki, which sent him on the back roads near to Mpala.  He was later apprehended in Nairobi.  So now of course the el shebab jokes are flying around.

Then as Todd's students were being driven from Nairobi to Mpala, there was a report that there was some guy at the market in Nanyuki with grenades on his belt, so Todd bypassed Nanyuki to get here.  Again, it turned out to be a hoax and total rumors.

But something that was not a rumor and was confirmed was that a villager outside of Nanyuki was attacked and killed by a hyena at night.  So I guess it goes to show, it's still the wild animals you have to fear most.  This is why we have the field guides to watch out for the most dangerous animals (during the day while in the field it's the buffaloes and elephants) and why our camp is surrounded by an electric fence.  The truth is, we are actually pretty secure if there was some threat from El shebab or something like that as we have a huge british army base right down the road and a former British SAS officer operates a fully weaponized Apache attack helicopter here (to go after poachers) to protect the rhinos and elephants in the reserves and ranches around here.

The real terrorists around here, as I'm sure Elisha would agree, are the little critters.  The invasion of the non-native big-headed ants has made life rougher around here.  These tiny little ants, not only wreak havoc on the ecosystem by attacking and eating anything in sight, but they also swarm all of our food.  If you leave any food out for even a few minutes, the big-headed ants find it.  This makes things difficult when you have to take out a field lunch and store your food.  Really the only safe place is in the one tiny refrigerator that all the researchers share.  And if the ants weren't enough, we have the rodents and hyraxes and superb starlings that can rip open sealed wrapping.  So you have to store packaged foods in sealed containers.  But then you have the vervet monkeys with their opposable thumbs who can get into most anything.  I've even had some problems with them getting into the lab and knocking down my pinning boxes.  Though, luckily, they haven't eaten any of the insects!  Inside the banda, I keep the mosquito net over my bed, not because of mosquitoes (there aren't really any of those around right now) but because of mice living up in the straw roof raining poop down onto the bed.  I also had a rock hyrax get in through the roof.  This little animal that appears be a rodent (a bit smaller than a marmot), but is actually most closely related to an elephant, is a great climber of rocks and trees.  During it's invasion of my banda, it pooped (it's pellets are similar to dear droppings) and peed on my floor and wall, and then another night it pooped in my sink and left some sort of bloody discharge in the sink.  Luckily I was able to chase it out of the banda and hopefully it won't return!

Pass the Honey

It's been a while since I posted b/c life has gotten crazy with the pollinators.  First off, the honey bees dropped off quite a sweet treat into Nairobi for my birthday.  Elisha arrived into Nairobi on my birthday, and I had arranged a ride for her with Karanja for the 4 hour journey to Nanyuki and then Mpala.  Little did she know, but I was planning to surprise her at the airport.  But as things go in Africa, I didn't quite get there.  The private vehicle to Nairobi costs about 80 bucks, and although Elisha is worth that, she would be angry at me for spending that much money.  So I hopped in the back of a lorry heading from Mpala to Nanyuki.  I then planned to catch a Matatu (6 bucks) to Nairobi and then the airport shuttle to the airport.  From Nanyuki it's about a 3.5 hour drive to Nairobi.  I got to Nanyuki at 9am and Elisha was set to arrive at 3pm plus an hours worth of customs and immigration, so I knew I had PLENTY of time.  However, Matatus don't leave until they are full, so I sat in the super hot matatu until 10....then 11...then 12...then 12:30, which was about my cutoff to make sure I met her, but then the Matatu was almost full, so I was thinking I could wait a bit more, but it was taking forever to fill that last seat.  Then all of a sudden it was 1:30 and it was filled.  I said, what the heck, I'm going to go for it.  So off we went.  I texted Karanja to ask for the number of the driver and then let Elisha's driver know I was on the way (but shhh...don't tell Elisha).  After her driver picked her up, I handed my phone over to the Matatu driver and they arranged for a place to drop me off so that I could surprise Elisha.  I got dropped off at a hwy exit that goes to the airport (you can bypass Nairobi to get to the airport).  It was this junky place with people selling wares and food.  I didn't have to wait too long before her van pulled around the roundabout.

We got right into the field work shortly after she arrived as Todd had also arrived the day before and had sorted out the nasty permit issues for me (turns out Todd of course had been correct and the Mpala director wrong).  We've been insanely busy on my project.  Getting up early, staying up late in the lab, but also throwing a couple of game drives in there as well (I can add 3 young cheetah brothers, jackals, greater kudus, and genet, and baboons to my list).  Basically, we get up early, head out into the field all day either doing floral abundance surveys or flower observations to catch pollinators visiting the flowers.  In the evening, we re-charge the killing jars, enter data, and pin the hundreds of insects that we catch amongst other logistical things.  Todd is teaching a field class, and he paid for this post-doc from UC-Davis, JC, to come help a bit with the class, but also to help me get started as JC has done pollination network stuff before.  So he's been helping us a lot, with ID'ing the local flowers here and with pinning techniques. Both he and Todd keep saying how my project is more like a PhD project wrapped up into a master's, so they are pretty happy with me.  But Todd, knowing that my workload is pretty intense, has had me hire 3 field assistants--Zachary, Julius, and Peter.  They are all really cool and very helpful.  But the most helpful and the most invaluable has been Elisha.  I am so lucky to have her here, and she is such a hard worker and makes sure the little things (like packing a field lunch) get done, which are the things I usually (wow! a cute little Genet just walked into the library to eat all the bugs that came out in this rain) put as a lower priority. 

Todd has also been awesome of course.  Super supportive and super positive, and I can tell he's happy with me.  Kat his girlfriend told me that Todd tells her a lot how happy he is with me and how he wished all grad students were like me.  That makes me feel really good because sometimes I feel like I am failing miserably at this grad school and research things!  The first night that Elisha arrived, Todd and Kat invited us into their banda for drinks (Todd is gluten free so he makes very tasty mixed drinks) and to just talk and laugh and tell stories.  Todd is so funny and always has the best stories. 

Last weekend (the field assistants get Sundays off, which means we can't go into the field b/c they are also our guides) Todd took Elisha and I into Nanyuki to do a bit of shopping and to take us out to eat at this super tasty Nyoma choma (grilled goat) place.  It was some of the best meat I have had in a while.  It's a local place.  To get to the tables you bypass several dead goats just hanging there.  You pick out the pieces you want and then they grill it up for you.  The waiter delivers it and cuts it up for you, and then the waiter takes a choice piece to eat in front of you to show it's not poisoned (tradition). 

Also last weekend Elisha got to experience her first sundowner.  The whole group went out to a rock outcropping to watch the sunset, eat popcorn, and pass beverages around.  I really like the group here.  Full of a lot of cool people.

Here are a few pics from the commute to work, visitors to the office (like the genet and vervet monkeys), and the view of Mt. Kenya we have at breakfast