Off to Kibale

Making all my final preparations to leave for Kibale tomorrow morning. I should arrive at Kanyanchu by late afternoon or early evening. I'm enjoying my stay at The Boma in Entebbe. Check it out: http://www.boma.co.ug/
xoxo

Nanyuki -> Nairobi -> Kampala

The next few days are all about travel. Our time at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy has been great! Here are some photos:




And a few more...
































And a few more:

Made it to Ol Pejeta

We made it to Ol Pejeta Conservancy late yesterday afternoon. Today we've had a drive around and met with our collaborators here. Back to Nairobi Friday morning.

Highlights:
Silver backed jackals
elephants
spoonbilled stork
warthogs
chimpanzee sanctuary

Having fun in Kenya

I am headed out to Sweetwaters sanctuary next week after the long holiday weekend. In the mean time, I'm waiting in Nairobi. I've had a chance to visit some interesting places: the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the Giraffe Center and the Blixen Museum. Today we also took a drive through the biggest slum in Nairobi: Kibera. Quite a contrast with the neighboorhood where we are staying (Karen...after the one and only Karen Blixen).

Looking forward to getting back in the research groove. In the mean time, here are some photos from recent days:

Chage of plans: No Tanzania :( but more Uganda :)

So it looks like our wildlife permits have fallen through in Tanzania. :( So we are on to plan C. The good news is that we have a chance to collect data on another chimpanzee community here at Kibale...and it has 100 individuals. (Kanyanchu). I'm crossing my fingers for Ngogo, too, but not sure if we can get details sorted out in time. An amazing research assistant has joined the team to help out. His name is Timothy and in addition to having a Master's degree, he used to be a warden at Kibale and has done extensive work with surveys relating to conservation and community development. I am so happy to be working with him!

I leave for Nairobi on the 1st and will be in Kenya for just under two weeks. Then I'm back to Uganda. We'll wrap up data collection at Kibale, and then we are hoping to head back to Ngamba Island for a bit. I can't wait to see my friends there again!

Watched an egyptian mongoose stalking red tail monkeys. They were in a mixed group together with red colobus. Once they saw him/her, there was a cacophany of alarm calls, and he had to give up and just sulked off into the forest. Score monkeys!

More from Nairobi! Big hugs all around!

Catching up - Mar 21

Sun has finally come out (sorta), which is nice after cold water showers.
A couple of nights ago, the local villagers (about 1k away from park camp) had a
tiff with a local elephant herd. they took torces (the fire kind) and tried to
chase them out of their gardens screaming and blowing horns at
them and such. Mostly, it pissed the elephants off...and they made
even more noise. The drama of the day in the forest. :)
Otherwise, things are going ok.

I saw an interesting encounter between a red colobus group and a baboon troop yesterday. Despite disparities in body and group size, the red colobus managed to chase of the baboons. This happened literally feet outside my guesthouse window. The red colobus males were dispalying like crazy...vocalizing, jumping up and down on the ground all puffed up and slapping the ground. What courageous little dudes! I suppose if you are willing to take on chimapnzees when they are hunting you down, then a baboon is nothing!

A couple of good guenon shots, too. Hope to post them soon. In the mean time, some more photos from Ngamba!

photos of my journey to Kibale

some recent photos for your enjoyment