Updates and LIONS!

The internet has been down all week so here's a compilation of what I have been up to all week: Sunday night and Monday I had some sort of stomach bug so I spent the whole day in bed. Tuesday and Wednesday we spent in the field conducting vegetation surveys in our plots. We have 15 radial plots that are 20m in diameter and we measure each cactus in the plot, for my portion of the project I also measure proximity to native trees. Each plot had 3 days of camera trapping data to see what animals are visiting the cactus. While my boss was in town Wednesday afternoon, I accidentally spent the afternoon searching for lions instead of finishing up data collection so we finished the vegetation data Thursday morning. Today (Friday) Anne-Marie, our field techs Gilbert and Samson, another researcher and myself came into town. We treated the guys to lunch and then did some shopping and are staying at our friend Arnold's house in town for the weekend. Arnold is the one with the bunnies sooooooo I'll be resisting the temptation to take one home, but they are the cutest things ever.

Wednesday I spent the entirety of the afternoon sitting on the roof of a Land Rover, hair tossing in the wind as we bumped and bounced our way through the savannah looking for lions. We heard that seven of them had made a zebra kill earlier in the day and were also seen in the afternoon. When we showed up there were already three cars looking for them and shortly after a few more pulled in. At that point the passengers of all 6 vehicles were standing on the roofs of their cars, scanning the tall grass and whispering, okay yelling, to one another in English and Kiswahili about what the best course of action would be to get the best view. 

Gilbert drove our car through the tall grass and acacia and we spotted what we could. I have learned that if a wild animal, especially a feline, does not want to be seen, it won’t be. At least not with a clear view. As our engines got closer to the lions resting place, I was able to spot the black spots on the back of one’s head and barely the movement of shoulder blades trying to slip away without being noticed. The grass came up just above their shoulders so only when she lifted her head to check out the humans were we able to see them. Like I said, if they don’t want to be seen, you won’t see them for long.