Let the Field Work Commence!

We finally have started in the field. Our first five camera traps yielded lots of fun pictures (below). We have deployed many more cameras and now today we are actually making the move to Kitabi full time. We'll deploy more cameras today. Then tomorrow hike some trails to find suitable places to put my live traps on Wed. or Thursday.

The last two weeks has been exhausting. We have been to Kigali and Nyungwe and also trying to catch up on other work. Okan finally made the bike ride from Butare (where we live) up the many, many, many hills to Kitabi (edge of Nyungwe). It looks, from a non-cyclist perspective, like it would be a brutal bike ride as it's mostly up hill. But Okan enjoyed it and made it in 2.5 hours (it takes me 1 hr to drive!). He said that mostly people just stare but some of the kids run with him and try to grab onto him as he bikes by, which is dangerous and annoying. But otherwise he really enjoyed it. And then after the bike ride, we proceeded to hike the trails with 40lbs of camera equipment in each of our backpacks up the mountain for another 3.5- 4 hours. I was, like last time, huffing and puffing and really feeling the altitude. Since Okan had biked up to Nyungwe that morning, instead of skipping up the mountain like he usually does, he actually walked, albeit much faster than I. If only I could swim up the mountain! Hoping I will get used to the hike after a week of doing it every day. Really looking forward to capturing animals in the live traps soon. First a week of pre-baiting (where the trap won't actually capture any animals but they can enter it and get the bait and leave). Then I'll activate the traps for real. Keeping my fingers crossed! Still quite rainy here and hoping a quick end to the rainy season now that we are starting full time field work! Here are some of the first camera trap images we got from the first month of trapping with only 5 cameras. We are just finishing up deploying the other 15 today.

 The first picture is of a genet and the second picture is of a duiker.

 We saw a number of people on our camera traps, mostly farmers. Oddly, there are several frames of this woman burying some seeds and then hoeing the soil. Note this is near the summit of the mountain and probably takes close to 1.5 hrs to hike up so it's a little odd to see someone planting something along a trail!

 This picture is of a side striped jackal. The main culprit for leaving all the scats I keep finding near this camera trap. I can't wait to trap him!

 This is an over exposed picture of either the same jackal or a different jackal marking his territory right in front of my camera trap! Maybe he wants us to know HE owns this trail!

The first is a blurry photo of a chimpanzee! So excited to see them on this side of the forest and walking along the trail! The second picture is quite a large serval. Too bad the camera's trigger time appears too slow! But at least I know they are there. I can analyze the spot pattern on his fur to identify different individuals. In the picture below, first you see three tiny piglets. Then the next picture mama comes into the frame! It is a wild boar.

 Another duiker

I like this picture of another side stripped jackal because he looks like he is hunting! The picture below is of a blue monkey

 Well, that's all for now. We're off to Kitabi now!