BLOG #8 – 30TH AUGUST 2012

BLOG #8 – 30^TH AUGUST 2012

Elizabeth Winterton

EARLY MORNING WAKE-UP CALL

When I was preparing myself for coming out to Africa I started reading Anna's blog. One particular entry stuck in my mind and it was the account of the elephants roaming around camp early one morning, and ever since I’ve hoped to have this experience too.

If you've read any of my previous blogs you will know back in July I had the fortune of an elephant visiting me in camp during lunch-time. However, apart from the occasional rumble and snap near the tent in the middle of the night, I've never been fortunate enough to see them at camp early morning until last Saturday.

Planning on having an extra 15 minutes in bed before work I was awoken at 5.30 by a low rumble outside the tent. Ever curious I cautiously peeped my head outside to have a look, and 30m from me was a huge bull elephant happily munching on a monkey bread tree.

Typically that night I had put my camera battery on charge, so as there was no wind I crept to the dining room to grab my battery snapping a few photos and attempting to get some video footage on my way back to the safety of the tent.  Unfortunately the elephants didn't hang around for too long, but it was truly amazing to see them so relaxed & up close.

Elephant at camp early morning

CHANGING PLACES

Since the demise of Jojo there has definitely been some shifting of rank taking place within the Fibwe group with seemingly more aggression, some of which directed at us (I'm not sure whether to be flattered they think we're baboons, or slightly concerned!). Mr Cookies, the oldest and biggest male in the troop seems to have taken a fancy to fighting anyone, and is usually joined (either with or against) Otis and Short Tail. Whether this increased aggression has something to do with the rapidly increasing infant population I'm not sure.

Something else which has changed is the female-female relationships, with females seemingly becoming 'friends' because of their recent foray into motherhood. For example, Godiva who seemed pretty lonely before is now commanding the majority of female attention, and Janis who was the 2nd lowest ranking female only to be seen with L.P. is now friends with Ella and even tries to hang out with the likes of Clover who is much more highly ranked than her!

With Ella, Dolly and the high rankers of Patsy and Indigo still to give birth, I'm pretty sure there are more changes to come.

Dolly, Dylan, Aretha, Axel, Godiva and Guns

NOT A GOOD DAY TO BE A BLUE MONKEY

On the 27th August we were happily watching the baboon troop, when all of a sudden the troop started barking and going crazy. After originally thinking they had come into contact with the other troop of 100 which shares some of their home area, we were shocked to see Mr Cookies leading some of the males in hot pursuit of an adult male blue monkey seemingly trying to kill it!

After managing to grab it once, the blue monkey somehow managed to escape & flee without getting injured.

This is the first time I've seen the baboons chasing something so large, so it was pretty amazing!

Usually the kindas and blue monkeys appear to live in relative harmony, using the same sleeping sites, but after the previous day’s battle I was surprised to see the blue monkeys at the same mushitu as the baboons the following morning.

Blue Monkeys

BLOG # 7 – 21st August 2012

BLOG # 7 – 21^st August 2012

Elizabeth Winterton

MJ has a baby

On the 16^th August MJ gave birth to healthy white infant. We were fortunate to be there only a couple of hours after birth when the babies eyes hadn’t even opened fully yet. MJ spent the morning grooming her new infant surrounded by her other children, Madonna and Mowgli.  After ditching MJ for Clover when she had her infant, it will be interesting to see whether Mr Wizard will go back to MJ and help care for the infant which is suspected to be his. 

MJ with Mowgli, her new infant, and Madonna.

Conservation Club/ Summer School News

Throughout August, myself and staff at the conservation centre are giving lessons to Grade 8 and 9 students from Kafinda Basic School to help improve their understanding of certain topics. With big enthusiasm I travelled up to Mulaushi on Friday expecting to teach a class of 20 with the help of the girls from the Conservation Club. Unfortunately we were disappointed with only 1 student turning up. However we still went ahead with the lesson and the girls helped teach about plant cell structure, photosynthesis and transpiration. With a lesson packed full of experiments, Leah, the student from Kafinda, got to test a leaf for starch, watch stomata, and even use a microscope to view onion plant cells.

Charity, Agness and Victoria demonstrating the starch test

This lesson was followed up by the girl’s Conservation Club lesson. This week Jesse, the local Peace Corps volunteer, came to teach the girls about HIV and Aids. With around 20% of people in Zambia living with HIV the lesson was extremely valuable. I am hoping that in October we can travel to Kafinda and the girls can teach the Grade 8 and 9 students and raise awareness of how to prevent HIV.

Jesse teaching the girls about HIV & Aids

The Life of a Baboon Researcher: Part III

It’s not all baboons. A little bit of Africa…

My two favourite things about travelling to a new country are markets and food. Markets because you can buy local crafts & paintings (as well as food!), but most of all you can interact and chat with the charming locals as they try & sell you things at 3 times the actual price just because you're a Muzungu. If there's 1 rule I've learnt in Africa it’s this; everything is a multiple of 3. If you think something will take you 1hr, it will take you 3, if you're offered something to buy, divide the price by 3. There also appears to be no more than 3 degrees of separation. Everyone knows everyone, or at least the wife of the cousin of the brother etc. If someone says they have malaria, there’s a 30% chance they have malaria (although the clinic will disagree); it’s most likely a cold.

This rule of 3 (particularly the time rule) is pretty much a daily occurrence so one of the greatest things I’ve learnt over the last 8 months is patience. Something I haven’t yet learnt to cope with though is the bus station in Lusaka…

After doing the 3 month shop you struggle out of the taxi to be surrounded by men barraging you with “Where are you going?, Where are you going? How are you? Livingstone, you going to Livingstone? Kasama? Livingstone? Mama, why are you ignoring me, where are you going!!?” Even after firmly acknowledging you do not need help and know where you’re going the jostling doesn’t stop until you finally arrived in the bus queue. After the dodgy man comes round making you pay extra for your luggage (and then pocketing the money after taking half the passengers off the bus at Kapiri to avoid paying a fine for overloading), and the bus workers somehow managing to fit hundreds of bags neatly under the bus (surprisingly in some kind of logical order), you’re squished into your designated seat. You then promptly shut your eyes for the rollercoaster journey of speeding, harsh braking, overtaking on blind corners, horn honking and of course the obligatory preacher and gospel music. An experience not to be missed.

Something else not to be missed is the food. As I mentioned earlier, one of my favourite things is trying out new food, and coming to Africa I was pretty certain I would be treated to a fantastic variety. Unfortunately this is not the case in Zambia. Breakfast is either rice with sugar, or a porridge made from maize meal. Lunch and Dinner are comprised of nshima with relish (a gelatinous lump of maize meal accompanied by veg, very fishy fried fish, or a meat stew). It’s actually pretty tasty if you get a good relish, and extremely cheap. Other delights include fritters (similar to donughts with no jam), caterpillars, termites and cassava (I’m yet to try the latter 3). Fortunately, Desmond the camp attendant is a whiz in the kitchen and conjures up tasty meals of pasta, curry, lentils, pizza and tortillas. He’s also a great bread baker and I’m currently teaching him cakes and pastry. Luckily the copious walking helps stave off the weight gain!

Despite the transport issues and rule of 3, Zambia is a wonderful place to live. When camp gets a bit too peaceful you can escape to the hectic delights of Lusaka, and when all that gets too much (usually after 2 or 3 days!) you can come back, watch baboons all day, and sit under the stars.

The Arts and Crafts Market in Lusaka

BLOG # 6 – 9th August 2012

Trip to Shoebill

Evidently having erased the torturous memories of the bike race from my brain, I decided to get back on my bike again for another long-distance trip, this time to Shoebill Island in the Bangweulu wetlands.

Along with Jesse (the local Peace Corps volunteer) and our local ‘guide’ Mwape, we set off from Kasanka at 6.20am on the 2nd August. Being not quite sure how far away Shoebill was we decided to go with the general consensus of 80km, and optimistically decided we’d easily get to Shoebill by 3pm the same day.

The first 60+km were pretty comfortable cycling, starting with the 36km cycle to the Livingstone Memorial, followed by a boat trip across the … river, and the start of the plain crossing. Feeling we were doing pretty well with around 26km left by 1pm, our goal of reaching Shoebill by 3pm still seemed within reach.

Livingstone Memorial

River Crossing

Our next big landmark was a patch of forest the other side of the plain called Namushitu, which appeared to be around 20km from Shoebill. The terrain got a lot tougher with extremely sandy bike tracks; poor Mwape must have got sick of pulling my bike up off the floor whilst saying the obligatory ‘sorry sorry!’, and combined with the heat of the midday sun it felt like we were cycling backwards. However, the landscape truly made up for the lack of hard road, with beautiful uninterrupted views of the plain with its mini termite mounds, and rarely another person in sight. 

The Plain

After mostly walking down an even worse track which was virtually un-cycleable, home to millions of mosquitos (at this point we were convinced our guide hadn’t actually gone to shoebill before and had taken us down the wrong path) and Jesse starting to suffer from severe dehydration (his water had run out at 7.30am, and I was now on rations) we finally reached our destination at 5.15pm. 86km and 11 hours of cycling. 

Chikuni; harbour to Shoebill Island

After another 40 minute boat ride and a beautiful sunset we stepped onto Shoebill Island, our home for the next few days. 

Apart from saying we cycled to Shoebill, the main reason for going was obviously to see a Shoebill. Fortunately we were extremely lucky, and after navigating our way round a hippo and literally walking on water we were treated to a great view of a truly wild shoebill. 

A Shoebill!

View of the swamp

The Life of a Baboon Researcher: Part II

By: Elizabeth Winterton

If you don’t like getting up early, don’t be a baboon researcher…

In my last blog I talked about camp and what it’s like to live in a tent in the forest. This week it’s the turn of the baboons.

We currently have 1 fully habituated troop comprising 60 individuals; 21 adult females and 7 adult males. The troop travels around 6km per day throughout their 6km2 home range of miombo woodland, chipiya grassland, and the occasional plain.

Work starts at sunrise with the walk to the previous evenings sleeping site, accompanied by your very own armed scout. Fortunately, on the whole the baboons sleep at the mushitus within a 15 minute walk from camp so it’s not a very arduous journey. Usually greeted by grunts and the sleepy faces of infants, work then begins. This mainly consists of collecting behavioural data on the adult males and females. We also collect GPS data, and have the delightful task of collecting faecal samples, although with their current diet of pods it seems their digestive systems have stopped functioning completely!

The 10 day blocks of research pass quickly with a mixture of all-day follows and 8 hour days split into morning and afternoon research, with a generous lunch break in between which generally comprises of downloading data, checking emails and editing photos.

On a typical day, the baboons wake up around 6.30am, come down from the sleeping site at 8am, feed for the majority of the day, and then return to a sleeping site by 5.45pm with you concluding work around 6pm. Due to the nature of their habitat, once the baboons have left the mushitu it’s pretty rare if you see all of them at once. Usually we get to see a maximum of 15 at a time if we’re lucky. So this means you spend much of the day walking around with binoculars clamped to your face identifying who’s who. Unfortunately the dense habitat and the relatively large home range means the baboons can literally vanish into thin air (our baboons would make excellent magicians!) and sometimes cannot be found for days at a time; again this is why you have to like walking as you can walk anything up to 20km per day looking for them!!

Baboons crossing from the mushitu into the miombo woodland

However, when with the baboons it is truly amazing, especially as you get to learn about the different personalities and see relationships forming and strengthening. All the adult males seem to have their favourite females, for example, Mr Wizard is either with MJ or Clover, and Mr Cookies is with Loretta, Norah or Patsy, some females are intolerant of each other (Indigo seems to hate everyone!), whereas others appear to have a deep relationship. Infants in the process of being weaned are hilarious as they scream for their mothers to pick them up and let them ride on their backs, and the juveniles are just cheeky, stealing the young infants and play fighting with each other. 

It is a rather surreal experience being surrounded by a troop of baboons, and I frequently have to pinch myself, and remind myself that these are wild baboons (although a few in particular like to remind me of this themselves!).

In the plain surrounded by baboons and puku

Mr Cookies giving Loretta some T.L.C.

A screaming infant