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.  

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.

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.

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.  

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.

Back on the road

Sort of... we have to push start the car every time we stop. At least we're making progress again.

We just took our last sample for this week so no more stops in our near future (unless we break down in a different way). Here is James, preparing our homemade sampler for that last sample from the Ruvu Morogoro bridge.

Fake parts

Still broken down. Mechanic never came last night. The vehicle driver has been working on fixing it only to just realize the parts he purchased were fake.

Wish I could help but I don't know anything about land cruisers. Too bad it's not a land rover.

Watching Nikki Minaj while we wait.

A Big Thanks

A big thanks goes out to the four men who helped fix our telemetry kit at the Purungat Bridge two weeks ago.  It is not completely fixed yet but these guys helped me break up the old concrete and lay another 30 meters of new concrete over the data transmission cable from the telemetry modem to the water quality sonde.  You can see some of the repairs in the background of the picture (just behind the two guys on the left side of the picture).  

Nga'nga is the head engineer for the Mara Conservancy (white shirt).  Thanks a million.