Ok time for another update!

So Saturday we went into town to shop for groceries and had lunch at that restaurant Trout Tree-- and it is pretty cool. It is literally a restaurant in a tree. It is even two stories, which is crazy! We sat on the top level to eat. There are usually monkeys in the tree that hang out while you are eating too, but we didn't see any that day. I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures.

Then we headed from town to Mpala for the night for Dr. Rubenstein's 60th birthday party. And it was a really good party. There were lots of people (I think I heard 60) and lots of wine. After dinner there was a huge cake shaped and decorated like the Princeton crest. Dan seemed really excited as he oped his presents. Then afterwards, most of the undergrads and grad students headed back down to the tented camp where we were staying for an after-party dance party around the fire pit. The tented camp is really cool. Above is a pic of the tent we stayed in. It looks kind of small in the pic, but there are three beds in there with room in the middle. And in lots of ways it is actually nicer than my banda at Ol Pejeta. It is totally contained, so no bugs get in, and the mattress was really nice. Plus all the tents are right on the river so you have a great view. The only downside is no running water, so there is a latrine and bucket showers. There is a nice mess tent with a long table and lots of chairs where meals are served and then there are 6 or more tents spread out on either side along the river. The fire pit is a big round stone one, with a raised bench all around that we bring cushions to. You can fit alot of people. Blair said the students have often talked about filling it with water and turning it into a giant hot tub. I don't think it would really be doable- but would be awesome if it was ever accomplished. I got to meet more new people which was also nice.

Sunday we headed back to Ol Pejeta to resume work. Dr. Rubenstein might be coming here on Friday to check in on our progress-- after he gets done with all of his meetings with the board of trustees at Mpala. Days have been getting pretty routine around here-- well as much as they can for being in Kenya! I go out everyday and drive around trying to find a hybrid, then watch it for a few hours. Yesterday we got really close to two cheetah again and took more pics. I had to stop in the middle of the road the other day to let a family of 10 or more elephants cross in front of me. Pretty standard now... but still awesome. Things are going well I think. The research is coming along. No more car problems so far, although I am still trying to buy a new tube for my tire that was temporarily repaired. Someone is supposed to be going to town today and I gave them money and asked them to get one for me. When I stop to think about it, I've only been here 2 1/2 weeks. In some ways it seems like I've been here longer. I don't know if two months will start to seem like forever by the end or not. It hasn't gotten old yet though :)

Everything runs slower on Kenya time

Sorry for the delay since my last post. I am trying to save my internet time and I think updating this uses up a lot of it.

So I had my first flat tire yesterday. It actually probably happened the evening before as I was driving home from the field. But I didn't have time to change it then because we were heading out to see the hyena den at dusk. We saw I think 5 adults and then a bunch of puppies popped their heads out of the den! Adult hyenas are not very cute... but hyena puppies are. By the time we got back from seeing them we were already late for dinner and it was almost dark.
So in the morning I changed the tire and put the spare on (yes I can do it by myself now!) and headed to Kamok to get the puncture repaired. Kamok, by the way, is the fuel/mechanic/butcher station in one corner of the Conservancy property... where you can have your car repaired, get more fuel, and buy steaks all in one convenient location. I had just been there 2 days before to get more fuel and have my oil topped off. And as I have learned by now, nothing goes quickly in Kenya. If you need something done, expect to wait. First, it takes 45 minutes to get to Kamok. Once I got there, I spent 45 minutes waiting for oil because the guy who had the key had gone out for a bit??? Then I spent another 15 minutes waiting for someone to come over and give me more fuel.

So yesterday I get to Kamok early in the morning and tell them my tire has a puncture that needs repaired. They do this a lot, so it shouldn't take too long. Well, it turns out that the puncture in my tire is not on any surface of the tube, but in the valve. They do a temporary repair job (which of course takes three times as long), but say it is not reliable and I will need to buy a new tube to really fix it. The only place to get a new tube is in town (Nanyuki). Going into town takes an hour and is always an ordeal, so I am not feeling too excited about this. Or, he says they can order one. Yes, please do that I say. Well I heard back today via a message through someone else that it appears they are not ordering a tube and I need to go buy one myself. Erg! At least we are planning to go to town Saturday anyway-- for lunch at this restaurant called Trout Tree... which gets its name because it is apparently a restaurant in a tree, like a big treehouse, and they farm their own trout. I don't really like fish, but I'm told they also have steak and chocolate cake! After that we will head to Mpala for Dr. Rubenstein's birthday party. He gets in just that afternoon and is turning 60, so it should be a good party.

Oh, and I almost forgot. After dinner last night we decided to go for a night game drive to try to find a leopard (Robin is desperate to see one). I don't think I have mentioned yet, but there is now a 5th person staying at the research center with us-- this guy Micheal who is a wildlife documentary filmmaker. He has some of the craziest stories... I will have to write them all down and post them sometime. Anyway, he has been here a lot before because he does a whole series on the running of this place showing how they manage a wildlife reserve. He seems to know lots of little spots we had not found yet and took us to places he has seen big game in the past. We did not see a leopard, sadly, but did see
1. a female lion eating a baby buffalo 2. about 20 or more hyenas in a den on a different plain 3. a mother lion and two young cubs 4. and finally, two big male lions just sitting in the grass right by our car.
It was dark, so I did not get any pictures, but it was a pretty good night of sightings.

Sundowner

We decided to have a sundowner last night... where you drive out to a cool spot and have a few drinks while watching the sunset. So we all hopped in Robin's car and went to a spot by the river with some Tuskers (Kenyan beer). The sun sets a little before 7 here, so we left at 6 to get there and find a spot to sit on a fallen tree. Here's a pic (L to R): Blair, Lisa, and Robin

Earlier that day as I was driving back from the field, the stupid blind elephant was in the middle of the road and I did not was to suprise him and get trampled, so I just had to park and wait for him to decide to walk away.

Wednesday evening right after my last post, as Robin and I were sitting at camp, we got a call from Blair saying they had spotted and were watching 5 cheetahs on Zebra Plain. So Robin and I hopped in his Land Rover to drive out there and join them. And wow, even though I guess it has had a lot of problems... his Land Rover is nice. So much better than the cars Blair and I are driving. It is huge too. So anytime we want to drive somewhere offroad or hard to get to to look for stuff we take Robin's car. There were three adult cheetahs together that we followed for awhile. At one point they stopped at this rock sign post at a junction in the road and all sprayed it at the same time. I have a really good pic of it, haha. Then their were two other, a mother and older cub (almost an adult but with still some neck fuzz) just down the road. On the drive back we really wanted to spot a leopard, but no luck. They are by far the hardest to find and see.

I also emailed Dan to tell him about my observations so far and ask if there is a better way to do the sampling. He seems pleased with my progress so far and gave me several helpful tips about what we are looking for and what is most important to note. He said to go ahead and do the scan sampling where every 5 minutes I just note the behavior of every individual in the group. I went back out yesterday and found the same female again and tried this sampling method instead.

Time to do some actual work

So today I went out on my own to start to get some actual data. I woke up pretty early, had just some fruit for breakfast and drove to Londru Plain in the Western sector. Happily I found a hybrid after not too long of drive and parked myself to start observing him. Dr. Rubenstein sent me an undergrad thesis a former student had done on these hybrids a few years ago, so for now I am just trying to follow her methods. Rosemary didn't really show me any techniques, and Dan just briefly mentioned what he might want me to do, so I am kind of winging it.

I am focusing on time-budgets for now, which is where you watch a focal animal for a specific length of time (say 30 min or an hour) and record what behaviors it is doing continuously. So every time it switches from grazing to walking or vigilant to self-grooming, etc., you have to note the behavior and the time. Each new activity ends the previous one and at the end of the sample you calculate how long the animal spent on each activity. The problem is, when they are switching actions sometimes evey 4 or 5 seconds, it is really hard for one person to watch through binoculars, check the time, write it down, and find the animal again before it has moved on to the next activity. Plus I am also trying to take photos during all of this for identification of the hybrid and to document their place in the herd and things like that. It would be much easier if I could just call out the behaviors and have someone else write them and the times down. Blair uses either a voice recorder (and then transcribes everything later) or a computer program that logs the activities and times for you. The computer would be great, but it is hard to take out in the field with you. With the voice recorder you can be more accurate than writing things down as they happen, but the transcribing takes awhile apparently. I don't have the computer program or a voice recorder... what I really need is an assistant. But that is not going to happen this time around... so I might need to ask Dan if there is an alternate way to sample.

After I watched to first hybrid male for about an hour and half, he joined a herd where I noticed a second hybrid, a female, so I switched to watching her and did another time-budget focal sample. After that I came back for lunch and to enter the data into my computer before I forgot things or couldn't read my own handwriting anymore and got confused. I tried to go back out in the afternoon to the soutern sector, but there were hardly any animals out there today. There were a ton of baboons on the airstrip, but I only found a few zebra on Scott's Plain, and no hybrids. So now Robin and I are just catching up on the internet before dinner.

ergg...

I keep trying to upload pics of these cheetahs and it acts like it worked, but then they do not show up. So I guess I will have to try again tomorrow.

We saw them at 6:30 pm just after coming back from Mpala as the sun was setting. I also have pics of a baby elephant and loads of giraffes. And zebra of course.

It rained here yesterday and I got Twiga stuck in the mud. But I called Blair, she drove over and she and Lisa and I were able to just push it out. When they got to me they said they were impressed I made it as far as I did. So I don't feel as bad about getting stuck. Note to self: do not go down that road again after it has rained. There are several roads here that are just impossible when it rains, as I've learned. Other than that I am doing pretty well. I went out with Rosemary yesterday morning just to see some more of the roads. But tomorrow I will head out on my own and try to start collecting some data.