It is tick infested, much like the previous area with the small mammal team.  The forest is a lot of sharp ups and downs.  The toughest area so far, one minute you are walking on level ground and the next it’s a straight drop into a ravine and then a straight climb up out of the ravine.

In the afternoon I headed back to Gamba for a break.  I am in the home stretch and after 3 weeks I will be back home.  I have had a great time on this trip but I am starting to fade a bit.  I will go all out on this last segment and I will be happy to be home in August.

The praomyas at the new site have all had ticks in the mouth, ugh, talk about painful looking. We weren’t sure what they were at first, but zooming into the photo in Aperture showed the little white legs of the ticks.

Wow, I really had no idea how pretty it is!  An open forest with cool gnarly trees, and spots where all the trees are leaning one way, I assume because of the wind from the beach.  I realized back at camp that the sound of the beach in the background that I thought would be nice, isn’t so nice in the video.  But it may be the crappy headphones I have, back home I can listen to the audio with nice headphones and maybe it will be different.

Lots of traffic on the team’s camera traps.  We also ran into a few monkeys, and I smelled that musky smell again, not sure if its chimps or the larger monkeys.  It brings back memories of Goualougo, so I am thinking it’s chimps.  It’s not the strong body odor smell you get with gorillas.  I’ll ask around in camp, Chris (on the small mammal team) might know, he was also noticing it when we were in the forest.

I am reminded whenever I go into the forest how much Goualougo boot camp really taught me a lot.  An amazing forest, pygmies, and Dave and Crickette, cannot really do better then that for teachers.

The buffalo was pretty brazen and did not mind us driving up to him.

The heat is devastating.

We did end up seeing buffalo but they were too far away for a good photograph.  It has been incredibly hot here the past few days.  I am glad Marcus and I were in the shade the during the hot part of the day.  We sat and waited, I saw a group of three buffalo cross between the forest in front of us, but at quite a distance.  Then some pretty birds, the bee eaters were chatting all day which was nice.  I found a weird eyed jumping spider, but had to use a telephoto lens since that was all I had.

Later when we moved on we saw a group of 10 buffalo, but again at a great distance.  During the morning I saw a group of 20 grey parrots flying high up in the sky, they are one of my favorites due to all the talking and funny noises they make.

Chris and Peter are the two vets from the zoo and Rosalie and Wilfrid are Gabonese who will assist and i.d. the animals.  So far it seems to be two species with a shrew thrown in if we are lucky.  I am waiting for a larger fish tank for the studio work. I’m having fun taking photos of the teams work, I have never seen this kind of vet work before.  Drawing blood and taking feces/urine samples from tiny critters is no easy task.  Especially since they need to be safely knocked out first so they are not in pain.

I can be artistic with the large group and my 24mm, but that also means the tiny mice are hard to see…  Not to mention all the work is done in the field under the shade so there is the blinding sun in the background, which I work around.  The other side of the work is mostly macro with a single flash because I need to move around and not be in anyone’s way.  I am noticing there is a lot of clutter, which I don’t like in photos and it is not easy to work with.

Not that we saw any animals, but we saw lots of signs of them.  We could also tell that the buffalo sleep in the savanna in that area so they feel safe.  There were some signs of elephants and red river hogs too.  The plan is to head there early in the morning and wait all day.  Morning and late afternoon are the key times.  The animals are smart enough to get out of the sun during the hot part of the day.

I’ve been feeling great.  I think it’s partly my breakfast of champions: sardines and eggs, and sleeping well since we have been turning off the generator at night, and the end of the project is in sight, and at the same time the work checklist is going great.

The large mammal team goes out early so I have been able to take advantage of nice light from the morning sun.  Plus we have had a lot of blue sky days.  I do have to fight my shadow 1/2 through the day as it wants to get in every photo.   And the right side of my body is tanning more then my left due to the way we walk: always with the sun on the right, so I’ve got a passenger side tan.

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 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.