Feb 27, 2016
Written by Ben Szydlowski (University of Vermont)
Greetings from Camp Dibatana in the Ngamiland district of Northern Botswana! After spending the first four days in the town of Maun it’s finally time to be in the middle of the African wilderness. Our team is led by Kaggie, Ben and Sixteen with us five students in tow; Laurel (University of Vermont), Kiley (University of Vermont), Siri (Westminster College), Gabe (College of the Atlantic) and me, Ben (University of Vermont).
Elephant (photo by Ben Szydlowski)
What struck me the most was just how wild Africa’s wilderness is. Seeing impala and zebra have become as common as seeing chipmunks and squirrels back home in the States. Elephants, buffalo and giraffe are a frequent sight from our campsite, which overlooks the plains. Within 30 minutes of our drive into the bush recently, we saw a young male leopard that couldn’t have been more than 30 meters from the road. Our first dinner in the bush was interrupted by an elephant walking next to camp, trying to reach the watering hole in the nearby plains, and the last few nights and mornings have been highlighted by listening to nearby lion calls. Clearly, we are fully immersed in the wilderness, forcing us all to stay extremely alert and excited at all times.
Leopard
On Wednesday we went into the village of Sankoyo—Sixteen’s village—and taught a wildlife conservation lesson to 5th, 6th and 7th graders to help them understand why we are working in their community. We taught them how to identify birds, how to use some of the scientific equipment that we use on a daily basis and taught them through a game of tag what happens to the ecosystem when a certain animal is hunted too much or too little. After lunch Kiley started an impromptu duck-duck-goose like game with the kids in the village. Sixteen helped us translate as all the children got a year’s worth of laughter when hearing our American accents trying to chant the words associated with the game.
RRCS students and Sankuyo Primary School students (photo by Kaggie Orrick)
As one would expect, the typical day out in the bush is completely different from an average college day. The past few days our team has been conducting bird count transects to assist with the data that BirdLife Botswana has been collecting throughout this concession. After the 5:30am wake up call, we’re out in either “Lucy” or “Francolin” (the names of our two Toyota Land Cruisers) counting and recording as many individual birds as we can see or hear at specific points along our transects. After returning to camp around 9:30am the rest of the afternoon is spent in class, where lectures and discussions are centered around the back of Francolin or in a shady spot in camp.
Lilac-breasted Roller (photo by Ben Szydlowski)
Students Siri, Kiley and Ben conducting a bird point count survey for Birdlife Botswana (photo by Kaggie Orrick)
In the upcoming days we will collect data for the Botswana Department of National Parks (DWNP), Southern Africa Regional Environmental Program (SAREP) and our partner, the Okavango Research Institute (ORI) by conducting herbivore transects. These consist of counting, sexing and determining the age of each individual herbivore, measuring their distance from the vehicle using a rangefinder, finding their angle from north using a compass, marking their GPS coordinates, and determining what type of habitat we find them in (i.e., floodplain, grassland, etc.). It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for a week already as the beautiful views and majestic wildlife have become almost commonplace. I can only imagine what we will see and experience over the next 19 days in this concession. Much, much more to come from our team in the upcoming weeks!
Lion (photo by Ben Szydlowski)
Grey Go-Away Bird silhouetted in the sunset (photo by Kaggie Orrick)