By Ella Hiebert of Colby College
As winter begins and May nears, the early transect mornings are growing colder, so I pulled on all of my long-sleeve layers before daring to exit my sleeping bag. After grabbing some fruit, chips, and cookies for our journey and checking the car’s fluids and research materials, we headed out for transect at 6 am. On transect, we navigate set off-road paths to count all herbivores, predators, and birds of concern that we see. We collect the location and habitat data for each sighting. We saw lots of exciting wildlife, including elephants, wild dogs, sable antelopes, zebras, and one of my favorite birds, the bateleur! We were the first three groups to return from transect around 11 am, but the bird point count group got back soon after, exclaiming, “Did you see the leopard?!”
Everyone in camp immediately began scrambling to gather cameras and binoculars to be driven by our awesome instructors, SB and Dix, to see her. Sure enough, a short drive from camp, a few safari cars were gathered to observe the beautiful cat. The adult female leopard was having a rest under a Kalahari Appleleaf tree and we could tell that she had eaten a good meal that morning because of her full belly. This was our only leopard sighting of the semester, so we were all very excited to get to see one on our last day in the bush. We sat in awe and wonder for at least 20 minutes, just watching her breathe and occasionally lift her head.
Upon a joyous return to camp, we began cooking a delicious second breakfast to supplement the quick bowls of oatmeal and yogurt made before transect. We made our favorite combination of cinnamon-vanilla pancakes with peaches and honey on top, a recipe which we have been perfecting all semester, along with eggs and bacon. Simple moments like this had become some of my favorite of the semester as they had taken on a very familial feeling as our cohort grew closer.
After cleaning up breakfast, entering our data from the morning’s transect, and a quick round of our most recent card game obsession, Nertz, we all began studying for our Natural History final exam that evening. Similar to our quizzes we have at each concession, the exam tested our identification of animal tracks, grasses, trees, and birds that we have been learning throughout the semester. Our natural history quizzes also include our knowledge of traditional uses of plants and the landscape and some Botswana history. The quiz is given in the form of a nature walk in the bush, where we are asked questions about the wildlife, birdsongs, and plants that surround us, testing what we have learned in an applied way. During our final, we watched elephants grazing as they made their leisurely walk across the plain, impalas and tsessebes chasing each other through the grassland, and the endangered Kori Bustard, the heaviest flying bird in the world, soaring overhead. Nearing dusk, the full moon appeared over the horizon, and we all paused for a moment to appreciate her shine in the multi-hued sunset.
We drove back to camp and that night’s cooking team began making our dinner while some of us went to shower at the camp bathroom, being cautious of the elephant who was browsing on the Bluebush shrub across the road. Once we ate, the cleaning and housekeeping teams washed that night’s pots and pans and tidied up the camp for the night. Finally, it was time for the best part of the day: nighttime card games. Our game of choice for our last night in the bush was Spades, which was filled with trash-talk (mostly targeted at Hope, who has never won a card game in her life), obscenely reckless strategy, and laughter-induced tears.
It was a long day, those of us who were on transect that morning being awake since around 5:30 am, so we soon got ready for one last sleep next to the Khwai River. The sounds of hippos, elephants, and lions lulled us to sleep, and the alarm of the obnoxiously loud Red-billed spurfowl woke us up too soon for our morning of packing up camp. The disassembling of tents, organizing and unpacking of our remaining food, and tetrising all of our camp into our four cars is always a sweaty and tiring couple of hours, but the fuel of the fresh-baked rolls that our instructor Dom got up early to make kept us going.
We said goodbye to the lovely and welcoming escort guides and staff of Mogotlho Camp, named after the Setswana name for Camelthorn Acacia, around 11 am, and I found myself dreading the moment of driving away from the camp that had been our home for the last nine days. Dreaded leaving the place where we had bundled up against the suddenly brisk late nights and early mornings, had pancakes stolen right under our noses by the Vervet Monkeys that frequented our campsite, and scrambled to chase after playing cards being swept away by the wind. Leaving the place where we had learned, laughed, and grown so much alongside ten people who had become like family over the last three months. Holding back tears (mostly successfully), we gathered for a group photo in front of the river before we loaded into the cars to return to Maun for the last time.
