I have been out with the large mammal team every day, we have been walking a lot.  We have heard a lot of monkeys, we tried to photograph them in the forest but my one shot was too dark, and they were quick as usual, so it’s hard to capture them in a photo.  We have seen a buffalo within distance but he ran into the forest tout suite; the other buffalo we saw was beyond the distance of any zoom lens available to mankind.

Maybe the large mammals are hunted (though not the monkeys) or maybe it is just the environment. There is a lots of savanna with patches of forest but poor nutrient soil.  If I had some camera traps this would be a piece of cake, but I did not have time between obtaining the job and leaving to find/make/borrow some camera traps.

I am seeing more landscapes and starting to understand the area better.  When it is the rainy season the savanna floods, lots of fish rush in, and the fisherman show up.  I wish I had a chance to return during the rainy season, the drastic change would be great for the photo story.

It has been tiring, but fun with the large mammal team.  I had no idea the savanna could change in looks so much, not to mention the gallery forests.  It is a whole new environment every day.  The trees closer to the beach have a lot of character and the savanna stretches on like a great landing strip.

I also learned some more history about the area.  It seem Mouloundo is an old village that was abandoned.  The area also was logged many years ago which surprised me, they used the Nyanga river as a exit point for the lumber and the town where the families (one really) of Mouloundo relocated is where the old logging camp is.  An old burned up cessna sits in the savanna outside of town.  Legend has it, the salary man of the logging camp had the cessna crash so he could hide all the money and say it was burned up!

I have been making the current list of species photographed with the teams today. I had not noticed we had such high numbers until I put them all in a list. The fish team was very prolific and they have edged out the amphibians with the number of species collected and photographed.

I also have had a snake visitor to my tent every few days. He crawls into the screen part and pops his head in, looks at me, and then slowly leaves. He is quite pretty and Tobi says he is not too poisonous… the snake has never been aggressive so I was not worried. Tobi moved him far away, though I am sure he will just make his way back at some point.

I tried to take a break in the morning after the long night, we were out until 1:30am, which is late for me in the field.  I am usually in bed right after dinner.

Hadrien arrived today with the two members of the large mammal team.  He is training them, so I photographed the short learning lesson they had.  They are using animal tracks and camera traps to help identify the number of species in the area.  Afterwards we talked about how to fix the camp so it runs more smoothly.  We are lucky to have such a great team.

The amphibian transect went through a lot of savanna and one small patch of forest, so I stayed in the forest. I have plenty of photos of them in the savanna so I looked for scenic shots and frogs. I only saw two species of frogs in the forest, but there were lots of cool trees and patterns to photograph. Few insects for a change.

Today was a busy studio day with a back-up of frogs after the trip the day before.  I learned my lesson with that one, the frogs do not last long, unlike the fish.

The amphibian team has had some troubles at night with getting the truck stuck, the day before they had to spend the night in the forest.  Tonight it happened again, but thankfully they were able to reach us by phone and we headed out to pull them out.  It’s been tough for them; long nights and  getting stuck really aggravates the nerves.  Tobi jinxed himself by saying he has never had to spend the night in the forest away from camp, and sure enough the next day he had to.

I’ve only had to send the night in the forest unplanned for a few days, but thankfully I had a one man tent with me.  It was my first trip in the forest with only Nick, without the family.  It was a good learning experience, Nick thought he new the trail and that he didn’t want to wait for the porters since they took too long, and sure enough we took the first wrong turn and went deeper and deeper into the swamp of Ndoki National Park.  It was in the days of the first watches with compasses (that do not work at all) so that “helped” us go off track.  The great Marcel from Bomassa saved us; we ran into one of his cuts in the forest, with a nice arrow point to camp…  Nick then said he knew the trail again and we should go the opposite direction of the arrow since that would lead to the forest camp. I refused and I think its the one time in my life Nick has had to listen to me, thankfully we eventually got back to camp.  It was Thanksgiving while we were lost, so we had puddle water to drink and Cliff Bars to eat.  It was a great bonding experience, we burned Pickwick papers to start a fire, and shared the one man tent.