First night in Ezemvelo

I have set up my blog so I can send short updates from my cell. We arrived at Ezemvelo today. It's pretty cool out here...my first 'real' African savannah. So far I've got three new mammals-waterbuck, black wildebeest and cerval as well as 4 new bird species. Ben and I have set 200 small mammal traps and will be checking them throughout the night. More to come in the upcoming days.

Back from Illovo Beach

I spent the last week at the Zoological Society of Southern Africa meeting in Illovo Beach, outside of Durban. The conference was a lot of fun and my talk went well. The meeting was in a resort overlooking the Indian Ocean and I had a nice view of the sunrise each morning from my room (the picture was taken from my window). I made more new contacts than at any meeting I've ever attended and I set up collaborations on bats, birds, and elephant shrews with some of South Africa's top biologists.

We also had some fun outside of the meeting. We took a route known as the Midlands Meander, which is a two-lane road along the face of the Drakensberg Mountains. The Drakensberg are a very cool range of very steep rocks sticking up out of a rolling prairie...unlike anything I've seen in North America. We also skipped out on talks one day to visit Vernon Crookes nature reserve where I saw a bunch of new species. All told, on this trip I got plains zebra, blue wildebeest, vervet monkeys, blesbok, reedbuck and exactly 50 new bird species. I'm back in Pretoria for two days before I'm heading off to the field for 3 weeks, so if you want to contact me, Monday is the day.

A brief update

Well I've finally spent a week in Pretoria. Nothing special...it's just a city. I'm slowly meeting people in the department and have been amazed by the hospitality of everyone I've met.

My big news: I'm making my first trip to the east coast of South Africa this week for the Zoological Society of Southern Africa Meeting in Illovo Beach. I'll see some new habitats, check off a ton of new species on the drive, and see the Indian Ocean for the first time. We return from the meeting on the 26th and I turn around and head back out to the field on the 28th. I'll be in a game preserve near Pretoria shaving elephant shrews and rock rats for 3 weeks. No lions or elephants on this preserve, but a ton of new game species. I've also got a plan in the works to go hunting for some South African game, probably springbok or impala, in August or September. With any luck, I'll get enough biltong (South Africa's version of jerky) out of it to last the rest of my time here!

I've started the map below to show you where I've been and where I'm heading the near future. I'll update it occasionally. If you can't see the markers, try zooming out on the map. You can click on the markers for a bit more detail.


View Where I've been and where I'm going in a larger map

Back in Civilization

I'm finally back in the real world after six weeks in the middle of nowhere. Remote does not begin to describe the area I was in. I had a blast; the research went well, the people I was with were fun, and the area was stunning. I took over 2000 photos and I'll be uploading some of the good ones on my Flickr site as I get time (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jboyles/). I will add more details on the trip later, but as a quick rundown, I ticked off giraffes, white rhinos, yellow mongoose, black spitting cobras, African porcipines, polecats, bat-eared foxes, caracal, African wild cats, three new bat species and 84 species of new birds, among many others. I'll get pictures of those up as I can.

My time in Pretoria will be short, but busy. I'm giving the departmental seminar this Wednesday and I head out for a meeting next Monday. After that, I'll be back in town for one day before I head off to Ezemvelo Nature Preserve (http://www.ezemvelo.co.za/) for 3 weeks to start a project on elephant shrews and rock rats.

I'm sorry if I've been a little lax on responding to e-mails, my internet access was almost non-existant out there. I'll try to catch up with everyone in the next few days and hopefully I'll get Skype up and running this week.