One more trip to Ezemvelo

We're back in Ezemvelo for the week to recapture the animals carrying dataloggers. I finally saw rhinos up close today. They were right on our trapline along with a fresh leopard kill. We will be checking traps throughout the night, so it might get interesting.

Back from Ezemvelo

We have finished up most of the elephant shrew/rock rat experiment in Ezemvelo. We have to go back next week to recapture our animals and remove the temperature-sensitive dataloggers they are carrying. It was a fun project and a cool place. The one negative was the ongoing battle with vervet monkeys that repeatedly broke into our kitchen and destroyed our food, with little response from the staff. My list of animals included blue and black wildebeest, red hartebeest, impalas, water buck, duikers, plains zebra, brown hyena, meerkats, and 28 new bird species, among others.

We are also in the process of registering for the International Ornithological Congress next August in Campos do Jordão, Brazil, near São Paulo. We are planning on staying for an extra week or two to see some of the country. It will be my first trip to South America, which I'm excited about.

I've also added a few new gadgets to the right side of the blog with hopes that it makes it easier to keep track of me. I'll try to keep the calender updated as my schedule fills up.

Still shaving elephant shrews

We have one more week in Ezemvelo shaving elephant shrews and rock rats--the experiment is going very well other than the fact that elephant shrews are a pain to recapture. Regardless, they are still the coolest little animal I've ever worked with. We will be back in town next Wednesday and I'll be around for most of the next month. We go back to Ezemvelo the first week of September to recapture animals carrying temperature dataloggers and then leave the first week of October to go catch pangolins in the central part of South Africa.

In other news, Bats of Missouri, which I wrote with John Timpone and Lynn Robbins is in the final stages of preperation. It is at the publisher now and they hope to have the final layout in the near future. The cover is finalized and I don't think it looks too bad, although I'm not a huge fan of the red.

Back in Ezemvelo

I spent the last four days in bed in Pretoria because of some nasty
pneumonia-like illness, but I'm back in Ezemvelo now. We released 20
animals implanted with dataloggers and we're getting ready to start
our second experiment today. Otherwise, we're spending all our time
fighting the vervet monkeys that live behind our lapa. I'll be back in
town occassionally over the next few weeks, so I shouldn't be too hard
to contact.

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