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.

Just a quick update

I've been in the Namaqualand doing research on freckled nightjars and pied barbets the last few weeks. I'm having a blast and the research is going well. I've uploaded a few pictures on my Flickr site if you're interested. These photos are mostly snapshots of what I'm doing...I'll upload the artsy photos when I get back.

If you've e-mailed me and I haven't responded, sorry, I've got very limited internet access. I will be back in civilization in a few weeks and I'll try to catch up with everyone then.

I'm in Africa!

It's been a crazy two weeks for me to say the least. For those of you that didn't hear, I was offered a job interview for an assistant professor position at the University of Vermont just a few days before I was supposed to leave for Africa. I managed to get my flights bumped back a week, only to have my interview canceled at the last minute because of some poor scheduling on their end. Oh well.

I arrived in Pretoria on Friday and after 3 days of jet lag, I'm finally starting to feel like my old chipper self again (stop laughing Dee). I've moved into my apartment, but unfortunately I'm sharing it with a post-doc from the UK right now. He seems like a cool guy, but I'm not all that interested in sharing an apartment, so I'm trying to get them to move me into a single apartment in the same building. On the bright side, it's a short walk to campus and to just about any shopping I'll need to do. Everything on campus is going smoothly. Within an hour of arriving, I had been registered, had medical insurance, and got an ID...all from one office. They even set up my bank account, so all I had to do was run down to the bank and sign for my debit card. People keep telling me it won't continue this smoothly, but after the land of lost paperwork that is Indiana State University, this place is a well-oiled machine. I'm in a huge office that I'm sharing with one other post-doc (that's the picture). I'm slowly meeting people in the department, but there is a semester break right now so not too many people are around.

I spent Saturday at my advisor's house watching the Super 14 rugby finals (sort of a Super Bowl of rugby) and having a braai (barbeque) and biltong (jerky). The local team won, so town was a little crazy that day.

I leave on Thursday to drive most of the way across South Africa to a region called the Namaqualand where we will be chasing freckled nightjars (like our whip-poor-wills) for 3 or 4 weeks. I don't yet know how the internet access will be, but I should be able to check my e-mail at least.

I've gotten e-mails from a lot of you...sorry if I haven't replied, my internet access was a bit limited this weekend. I'll try to respond soon.

Getting close

No real news, but it's a little less than two weeks until I leave so I thought I would add a post. My graduation was Saturday, so I've now officially jumped all the hurdles to becoming a Ph.D. I've finished up the paperwork to get into South Africa, and I'm waiting for my Visa application to be approved. Andrew has gotten all the necessary approvals for the elephant shrew shaving project, so we should be able to start that very soon. It also looks like the trip to the Namaqualand is shaping up, so I will be traveling to the western side of the country shortly after I arrive.

I will be using Skype to stay in touch with people in the States, so if you want to talk to me while I'm there, you'll have to download it and sign up for an account.