Monday, October 22, 2012

‘I hit a cow’ and other updates from the past three weeks



Week 1: Attended the South African Wildlife Management Association Conference (SAWMA). I created my first legit scientific poster that will be on display at the 2012 Pan-African Ornithological Conference. The take home message from that meeting for me: very few people are working in my study area.  It is difficult to find information on this area, but it was interesting to contrast this with how much research is happening elsewhere in South Africa. 

At the end of the conference, I got to hold both a chick and adult Cape Vulture at VulPro. It was great training on how to work with the ‘heaviest vulture in southern Africa’.
Holding a vulture chick at VulPro

Very excited about holding an adult vulture!



My poster!


Week 2: Helped place a GPS transmitter on a Cape Vulture from the Drakensburg Mountains with the African Bird of Prey Sanctuary/KZN Wildlife. It has now been successfully released. Then with barely any time to breath, it was down to Mkambati for the last vulture monitoring of 2012. There were lots of large vulture nestlings! I put my construction skills to work with the hide for the vulture trap. The hide had to be constructed in the workshop though, due to a downpour that lasted almost 24 hours. I just kept thinking of the vultures on the cliffs! And as I would find out the following week, it is possible for their nests to be washed off the cliffs!
Field work rocks!
Baboon poop in a very odd place...

Me at the Superbowl

Week 3: Vulture monitoring road trip. We joined up with a group that was monitoring and locating vulture colonies in the Transkei region.  Since the colonies are spread out and few hotels in the region, it means lots of driving! Most of the good roads are single lane tarred highways, with lots of 16-wheeler trucks, hence lots of passing is involved with driving. The bad roads are dirt with gravel poking out that makes your vehicle bounce up and down!
Vulture Colony in the Rain

Notice all the vulture dots

Another big hazard is the livestock. They are free to go where ever with few fences restricting their movement. They always seem to enjoy munching the grass on the side of the road. Road kill is common on these roads, and this causes dogs to be attracted to the carcasses (and vultures), which only make more obstacles to avoid! On this particular day, the caravan leaders were speeding a long, despite the misty/rainy/foggy weather. On the single lane tar road, a truck was coming towards us with people behind us and a cow on our side of the road. We slowed down, but it was still moving too slow. We tapped its butt and heard a cracking sound. The cow continued to walk off, but we were so upset! We stopped soon afterwards to find the spotlight of the vehicle dangling by its wires. Eish!
I can’t believe we hit a cow! This is one of those things that you joke about, but should never happen! 

 The good news: the garage was able to fix the car up as good as new! The bad news: one less carcass for the vultures!

Yellow-billed Kite

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