Apparently, mosquitoes never sleep...EVER!

A breeding herd at the camp waterhole.

This blog I write sitting on my deck watching some elephant down by the waterhole and enjoying the breeze whipping my hair around. Normally I would be mumbling about such a breeze as it is rather irritating. Not today. You see, this breeze is about the only thing that manages to keep mosquitoes and flies invading every part of your daily activities. My legs and feet are covered in mosquito bites and I can be regularly seen brandishing a can of peaceful sleep or doom trying to ward off flies. I find that a combination of Tabard cream and Peaceful Sleep spray appears to work the best after several itchy experiments. The flies in camp are large and obnoxious while the flies out in the bush are small and bite like the devil. One evening after getting stuck in some very deep mud, we climbed onto the roof to wait for Rio to come and winch us out. It got dark and the smell of the mud got increasingly noxious. However, we did enjoy the sunset and kept our eyes peeled for the leopard that we had been tracking and who was very close by. Rio finally arrived and winched us out and we got back in the car to return to camp only to discover we had left the windows open and EVERY mosquito in the whole of the Delta had taken up residence inside the car. We also realized that we hadn’t brought any repellant. We opened every window and while Sven drove Katrina and I started the massacre. The battle was a close tie, however with the wind on our side we came out triumphant. Our battle wounds displayed the proximity of the fighting and the anguished remained with us for days to follow.

Right now that the drama has been laid aside lets get down to business. The bird transects for Bird Life Botswana have been completed. While quite the job, especially for those not deemed Twitches, it was a great learning experience. We are now not so rusty on our birds. For the next 10days we (Dibatana and Dog Camp) have to conduct herbivore counts, to complement the predator research that is taking place in the area. This requires 5am starts and a few hours of driving at a constant speed and counting all the vegetation munchers we see, as well as working out how far they are from the vehicle. Thankfully, for this we have a laser range finder used mainly by hunters to work out how far away an animal is. So apart from computer lessons which I have been doing with Owen (the camp manager) and Moses (the camp mechanic) and trying to write up articles from my honours project this is what I will be doing for the next 10 days. Eating, smelling and breathing herbivores.

Beautiful sunset down by the Gomoti River.