Camera traps!

After a few days vacation to Nakuru/Naivasha with Sammy, it is back to work now... and data is starting to come in.

I collected the first round of camera trap photos and here is a sampling of some of the best so far!

 Wild dogs

 One was collared on Mpala before the pack moved south to Ol Pejeta

 lioness

 joined by her friend

 Another leopard (a different one on a differnt plain that the last post)

sniffing where the lions above had been

Camera traps

Just downloaded the first round of camera trap photos and got some cool surprises. I love opening up the camera trap files for the first time, because you never know what you are going to see on there.

An quizzical black rhino

 And a curious leopard!

More car trouble...

As I mentioned earlier, my car has been having some issues. We thought they had been fixed and my car was working for a few days-- during which time I actually got a lot of work done. Until yesterday, when it died again. The mechanic is here now working on it, without much luck so far it seems. These car issues really cut into research productivity, as I need it for everything I do.

So for now I am sitting in the research center and thought I would add another post. While the car was working, I saw a couple cool things recently. First, is a brand newborn baby zebra. The mother must have just given birth as the placenta was still not fully expelled, the baby was wet, and had't yet stood up. I stopped to take a few photos but then moved on to leave them at peace as the mother was obviously nervous about me being there.

 Also, a rare striped hyena. There are lots of spotted hyenas here, but only a couple striped ones, which have longer fur and different coloring.

Camping!

Finally getting around to posting camping photos from last Saturday night!

 The group: Chelsea, Sammy, Christina, me, and Hagen

 Me and Christina by the river

 Me and Chelsea

 Sammy

 Hagen trying to look manly

 The bar

 Carrying firewood

 The fire!

 Full moon

All in all, a great success!!!

Animals

I hope to finally get started on real work tomorrow by putting out grazing exclosure cages and camera traps for my research. For the past week I have had collars on cattle herds to see where they are going in order to choose my sites. Now that I have that info, I can begin collecting data. It always takes longer than expected to get set up and rolling around here. But that is ok. In the meantime, I have seen more cool animal sightings, as usual for this this amazing place. Here are just a few:

 Another poor baby tommie fell victim to some hungry jackals...

 Giraffe's drinking at the water trough

 Sunset during a sundowner

 Saw the wild dogs again

A very wounded zebra... not sure what did this to him. He was near the wild dogs, but it could have been a lion also

Wild dogs

After a bout of car trouble, I finally seem to be back up and running (hopefully it stays that way!). So it is time for another post. We went camping Saturday night by the river and it was awesome. I will try to post pics from that once I get copies from the others who took them. For now, I found the wild dogs the other day! So here are a couple photos:

 I had also been meaning to post a photo of the painting I bought at a shop in Nakuru during our safari. I really really like it! Mom and dad took it home for me since they have less luggage to carry, so sadly I will not be reunited with it until Thanksgiving or later...

Elephant Translocation!

I know I haven't posted anything since mom and dad left... but hopefully this post will make up for that and then some.

Today we got to be part of an elephant translocation, and it was awesome. There are 10 male elephants that they are moving from this area to Meru Park about 6 hours away. The elephants are darted with a tranquilizer from a helicopter, loaded onto a huge truck with a crane, then moved into another enclosed truck where they are woken up to make the trip standing rather than lying down. We got to watch the whole thing and touch the elephant too. After over 400 photos, here is just a sampling.

 The helicopter herding the elephant closer and darting him. It got so low to the ground! Great pilot

 Unfortunately the first dart fell out, so instead of going down, the elephant just got mad and broke through the fence, heading straight for a random cattle herd on the road.

 Re-loading a second dart

 He finally went down

 To then be lifted by his feet onto the first truck

 It is strange to see something that big in the air upside down

 There was always someone holding his trunk to make sure he could breathe

His eyes were open even though he couldn't move, and I wonder how much he was actually conscious of around him

 We could feel him breathing on us

 I got to ride in one of the big trucks! Following the elephant to the staging area to load him onto the transport truck

 Moving him over to the ramp to pull him in the enclosed truck

 In he goes

 Just after this, they gave him another shot to wake him up, closed the doors and we could see him stand up inside the truck through a little window

They also darted a second elephant, loaded him into the truck, and then the two were off to their new home in Meru

Aberdares

Mom and dad left yesterday (Thursday) around 1pm, and it was sad to see them go. I hope they had a great trip and will want to come back to Kenya again now.

Finally finishing up overdue posts, here is the stop last of our safari: the Aberdares. This is a high altitude range where the habitat is very different than, say, the open plains of the Mara. We took a game drive to see the scenery and then spent the night at the Ark-- a hotel that literally looks like Noah's Ark and sits next to a waterhole/mineral soil spot that they illuminate all night so you can see animals come to drink and eat minerals out of the soil. When we arrived there were 20+ elephants all eating away.

 Dad in his natural state..

The Ark + elephants on the right