Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Mara River Trifecta

I was going through some pictures today from our last field season.  I found this gem...the Mara River Trifecta; a dead wildebeest, a hippo and a crocodile.  


Monday, April 8, 2013

Mara Flood Update

Here is another picture from the Mara Triangle Facebook page.  Looks like the water is receding a bit.  Our water quality meter and telemetry system appears to have survived.  That is Francis, standing directly next to the telemetry portion of it.  


If these scientists are correct, then the dramatic floods we have been witnessing in the Mara will be the new normal.  



Massive Flood in the Mara

The Mara is currently experiencing a massive flood.  The river has almost risen over the upper bridge down at Purungat.  Check out this picture from the Mara Triangle Facebook page.  


We've been notified that our telemetry kit is in danger of being washed downstream if the water rises much more.  Not much we can do about it now but wait.  

As of this moment, it is still transmitting.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Land Cover of the Ruvu Basin

I just finished geotagging all the pictures from my Tanzania trip.  You can find the map and pictures are here.

In case you're interested, I used gpicsync.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Unstuck

We got stuck for a few hours on this road on the way to one of our sample sites near the Ruvu-Ngerengere confluence.  The driver is finally able to get out after picking up some speed and getting a helping hand from the locals.


Travel is extremely tough in the wet season.  

Friday, April 5, 2013

Bird Fight!

During our field work in Tanzania last month, I saw two types of bird that I've never seen before.  And...I saw one of them chasing the other.

The red one is a Zanzibar Red Bishop.  The black one with the long tail is a Pin-Tailed Whydah.  I snapped these pictures in an area called Mvuha.  Although, I did see the Zanzibar Red Bishop in other areas of the Ruvu Basin as well.

I'm actually pretty impressed with these pictures, given that we were going about 30 km/h down a bumpy dirt road and I was hanging out the window snapping these as we were driving by the action.



Before and After

Before:  Damaged line connecting the telemetry box to the water quality sonde.  Damaged during a flood in January.


After:  250kg of concrete holding a new line in place.