Gum boots to keep feet dry in the wet season: 16,000 Ugandan Shillings. Rooster to eat for Edson the camp managers birthday: 18,000 shillings. Binoculars to see chimps in distant canopy: 49 pounds 99 pence.Being chased by angry bee's that think you are a chimp trying to steal there honey and being stung twice in the face: Priceless. There are some things money can't buy or prevent, for everything else there's my student overdraft and overburdened parents. Being in the forest I've learnt to approach challenges with a positive outlook. While in isolation the bee stings could be seen as unfortunate, in reality they were nature's way of prepping my adrenal system for the experience of being charged by a forest elephant the following week. We were with a group of tourists when we came upon the elephant. We smelt it (just like the elephant enclosure at the zoo, unsuprisingly) and saw the dung first. The male was just wandering on the path chewing some branches, the tourists wanted to get closer for photos and when they were within around 12 metres of the elephant it must have got annoyed because it spread its ears wide, opened its mouth and charged towards us. I'd like to say I stood my ground, stared it in the eyes and the elephant turned tail and ran away. But if I'd done that I'd probably be flatter than a chipati. Instead, i ran away with the tourists, I didnt register that the loud bang was the ranger firing a shot from his rifle into the air, causing the elephant to rethink it's strategy and run away, until I had sprinted in the opposite direction. Fortunately I didn't run long, as my route would have taken me directly into another family groups of elephants.
It's been great getting to know the staff better as I've spent time here. They're all completely welcoming and make living here a totally pleasant and incredible experience. One of the rangers, Alimosi, has a business keeping bees. I'm trying to learn more about it so that I can start making honey back in the UK. It probably wont taste as good as the stuff he gets from the Rwenzori mountains, but it is still honey.
Currently going through a dry patch seeing the chimps. As there's so little food in the forest for them to eat at the moment they have to travel large distances in small groups in order to find enough. That means we can go days at a time with no signs of chimp anywhere. Hopefully they will start coming back as they seem to move through the area in cycles, spending some days in each area then returning. There are some fruiting fig trees at the moment, hopefully this will tempt them back to us...
So many more things to mention but time in town is brief, we have to go to two busy open air markets to get supplies plus other administrative tasks. If anybody would like a letter send me your address and I'll try to write.
Hope everyone is well!
Alex
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
High Winds in Uganda
I've always wanted to have the skills of an animal tracker. To be able to know the species, group size, sex ratio, direction of movement and even inner hopes, dreams and fears of an animal just by studying a slightly broken twig in the middle of a dense forest. Now I can pretend I have these abilities. The rangers notice knuckle prints in the sand, the bent foliage than indicates a group of chimps has passed through, the differences between baboon and chimp dung (baboon dung is usually smaller and has more threads of grass in it) and are eerily good at hearing the calls of chimps in the distance. So when they point these clues out I can at least imagine that I share their abilities through osmosis. Slowly I am beginning to learn these techniques of tracking. On the rare occasions I do spot a chimp before the ranger with me I often am so excited that I have found them that I shout 'chimp!' and it runs off before anyone else sees it. I will/must/probably won't improve.
I'm working on getting good photos of the chimps for personal satisfaction and also, more worthily, so it's easier to identify the chimps using a photo ID book. Currently a rule seems to be in force meaning that when I bring out the camera we see no chimps and when I leave it we get within 4 metres of them and they practically pose for us. So from now on I'll always be taking a camera, and look forward to the extra sweat I produce carrying it along with everything else.
I've now procured ethanol from a local store called 'Lab +', which appeared to be an odd mix of shady backstreet and supplier of materials for laboratory work. Now I can begin hunting for dung associated with particular individuals and later hopefully extract the DNA, instead of contaminating the samples and ending up extracting my own DNA.
While hear I've heard that the chimps occasionally raid the crops of farmers high on the escarpment, apparently especially in the dry season when food is scarce. A new objective is to visit the local farms with a ranger or camp staff as translator and chat to some of the farmers to learn more about this. Food is scarce here compared to other chimp habitats so it'd be interesting to know what role, if any (as we haven't seen any traces in their dung), human crops are playing in the chimp diet.
It's about to go from dry to wet season here in Uganda. I've bought some wellies in preperation for the river crossings that will become necessary once the water comes back. A few days ago the first heavy rains came, along with immensely powerful winds that knocked cups of the tables and sent the rain everywhere. The rolling thunder and overhead lightening made it the most intense storm I've ever seen. Being exposed to it, protected only by wooden thatched roofs that soon began to drip made it very exciting/cold. It was fun trying to cook dinner in the middle of it, everyone managed and was relieved when the rain finally stopped some hours later. Fortunately, we just finished laying the gravel paths so we could walk, not swim, to our tents.
Living in a real life version of the Lion King is still fantastic. Mr Tokyo is still missing, presumed dead. Hope everyone is well, thanks for the comments. Oh and we also identified a new male. He looks old and has distinctive red markings on his face, reminiscent of war paint. We've named him Kali, which is the Swahili word for burning.
I'm working on getting good photos of the chimps for personal satisfaction and also, more worthily, so it's easier to identify the chimps using a photo ID book. Currently a rule seems to be in force meaning that when I bring out the camera we see no chimps and when I leave it we get within 4 metres of them and they practically pose for us. So from now on I'll always be taking a camera, and look forward to the extra sweat I produce carrying it along with everything else.
I've now procured ethanol from a local store called 'Lab +', which appeared to be an odd mix of shady backstreet and supplier of materials for laboratory work. Now I can begin hunting for dung associated with particular individuals and later hopefully extract the DNA, instead of contaminating the samples and ending up extracting my own DNA.
While hear I've heard that the chimps occasionally raid the crops of farmers high on the escarpment, apparently especially in the dry season when food is scarce. A new objective is to visit the local farms with a ranger or camp staff as translator and chat to some of the farmers to learn more about this. Food is scarce here compared to other chimp habitats so it'd be interesting to know what role, if any (as we haven't seen any traces in their dung), human crops are playing in the chimp diet.
It's about to go from dry to wet season here in Uganda. I've bought some wellies in preperation for the river crossings that will become necessary once the water comes back. A few days ago the first heavy rains came, along with immensely powerful winds that knocked cups of the tables and sent the rain everywhere. The rolling thunder and overhead lightening made it the most intense storm I've ever seen. Being exposed to it, protected only by wooden thatched roofs that soon began to drip made it very exciting/cold. It was fun trying to cook dinner in the middle of it, everyone managed and was relieved when the rain finally stopped some hours later. Fortunately, we just finished laying the gravel paths so we could walk, not swim, to our tents.
Living in a real life version of the Lion King is still fantastic. Mr Tokyo is still missing, presumed dead. Hope everyone is well, thanks for the comments. Oh and we also identified a new male. He looks old and has distinctive red markings on his face, reminiscent of war paint. We've named him Kali, which is the Swahili word for burning.
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