Zambezi: My African Adventure

How can another week have gone already?! I swear time is starting to speed up...

Victoria Falls from above

Started off with the greatest (very early!) 21st Birthday Present ever! Sunday dawned grey, cloudy and dull for the first time in weeks which scared me for a while, but the weather improved around mid day. I spent that morning writing my university report, then life definitely improved in the afternoon when a car came to pick me up, and took me towards Masuwe, to the helipad. The helicopter flight was incredible. I was in the front next to the pilot, giving me a fantastic view all around and even between my feet! We flew around the falls a couple of times in each direction, giving a wonderful view of the spray flying up from the waterfall and the rainbows through it. The river is so beautiful from above, and the sun was now out and sparkling on the water. The river is dropping so the islands are beginning to show making it even more beautiful. I'm glad I waited for the dry season to return instead of doing the flight in the wet season - the spray was beautiful, and the waterfalls are still large enough to be stunningly impressive, but the spray is now small enough that you can actually see the falls! After our 4 laps of the falls, we flew a short way upriver until we were over the largest island opposite Livingstone, then back down and along some of the lower gorge. We did one last lap of the falls each way, then flew back towards the helipad. Taking a 5-minute detour, we saw a small herd of giraffes, hanging out with some zebras and baboons, before the helicopter eventually landed back where we started. It was a full half hour flight, but it felt like 5 minutes! One of the most beautiful views I've ever seen, and I repeat what I've said before - of all the things that I'll miss about being here, I think the river may actually be top of the list... Apart from the elephants of course! The Zambezi is just so beautiful and there is just nothing like it at home.

The Smoke That Thunders

Anyway - back to work on Monday! We started out with Occupancy Survey in Chamabondo Vlei, where we found tracks for hyenas, civet cats, and most excitingly, painted dogs. I've still never seen a painted dog, and I'm getting slightly desperate! I really want to see one, and so many of the volunteers have seen them now when they go to Chobe. Not that long ago some of them saw a pack fighting a group of hyenas! Anyway, occupancy survey was fun, and as we leave at 6:30am, it's never too warm for walking along the roads. The afternoon I was supposed to be going out on game count, but with so many IDs to get through I stayed behind and started on the last sighting from 14th April. The photos are terrible - it was almost dark when I took them and they're all movement-blurred and grainy... It's going to take a long time...

Zebra that we saw during Elephant and Giraffe Research

Tuesday started off with another session of work on the project being done by one of the other interns - his work on the improper disposal of non-biodegradable waste. There are 25 campsites along the river on turnings off from Zambezi Drive. 10 were done last week, but we spent the morning walking along through the other 15 sites and picking up any litter that we found. I was glad to discover that there's remarkably little there. In all 15 sites we only found some paper, a plastic bottle, and the wrapper off of a water bottle. It was slightly annoying to hear that there was a pride of 4 lions right at the point that we were walking towards - we wanted to go and find them, both to see them and more importantly, to make sure we knew where they were as we walked along! The afternoon we were back out in the park, but this time on Elephant and Giraffe Research. Knowing that there had been lions around in the morning, we were rather hoping to find them, but there was no sign. Unfortunately the elephants were nowhere to be seen anywhere either. We went for sunset drinks afterwards at the safari lodge, where we watched a few marabou stork down by the water.

Wednesday was a rather odd day... We were supposed to have a full day of Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Survey as usual, but it went somewhat wrong... First we got a flat tyre before we even reached the first homestead - normally we get to the first one around about 10am, this week we got there at 11:15! We did the first two homesteads, and got back on the car to head to the third when we heard that the car was being called in for a service that day! We literally just stopped for lunch and came home! I spent the rest of the day doing more IDs instead. At 7:30 we headed out on night drive, but it was very similar to last week - absolutely nothing to see...

African Hawk Eagle

Thursday started off with Elephant and Giraffe Research. We went to Chamabondo to look for them first, where we found no giraffes, but 1 small group of elephants. We also saw a beautiful African Hawk Eagle perched in a tree. The elephants were entirely unhelpful that morning. Firstly, the group that we saw in Chamabondo was hidden very well in bushes, but they also got quite aggressive. The first elephant that we saw crossing the road really didn't like seeing us there... She was almost all the way across the road when we came around the corner, at which point she spun around, tossing her head, and getting ready the charge at us! We made a hasty retreat back around the corner, and unfortunately missed all the rest of the group bar 2 more females and a calf, so we have no idea how many there were. Once we left the park, we went for a quick drive around the Big Tree as usual, and found a group of 8+ elephants but they were too far away and hidden in bushes to determine an exact number or to get any photos for identification. The afternoon was not so pleasant... Hyena tracking is normally quite fun as we go bush whacking through the park, but this time the GPS point that we were heading for (showing the last point where the hyena was) was right on the edge of the town, just in among the trees next to the road. Being right next to the town, the trees and scrub are absolutely full of litter, including some pretty disgusting bits and pieces that I never want to have to walk through again! When we finally found the point there was a single paw print, but no other signs of the hyena and the telemetry aerial could pick up no signal from the VHF collar.

The first of the groups of elephants

Bird survey was the research activity for Friday. At first we saw very little, probably because of the cold. It's getting to be absolutely freezing whenever we go out early or late, and even in the middle of the day I often still wear my jumper on the car now. Once the sun came out, the birds began to get more active, and by the end of the hour-long session, we'd counted 19 species, including several that we don't often see: black-crowned tchagra, village indigobird, orange-breasted bush-shrike, and a grey-backed camaroptera. Afternoon was great - we went camping again in Chamabondo, and when we arrived at the platform we saw so many elephants! Broke the record this time when we reached a total elephant count for the day of minimum 108! Of course I wasn't able to get the best data because after a while it got dark and the elephants changed from easily-identifiable individuals with obvious ear notches and nicks, to large dark blobs shifting around by the black waterhole. We had really good fun watching the elephants, and also saw springhares and zebras. The best part was definitely the cute little baby elephant that, when trying to drink, fell into the waterhole! It was so cute! At first, the calf just swam and played about in the pool, but then the group started to move away and the calf couldn't get out! Mummy-Elephant had to come over to the pool to pull it out, and eventually hooked the calf out with her trunk around its tail. Finished off our night with s'mores around the fire, roasting marshmallows and chocolate on sticks. We woke up very cold on Saturday morning, and then we headed home for much-needed showers, and now it's time to get back on with more elephant IDs!