June 22, 2008

Yesterday afternoon I went on the rhino game drive. The taphonomy assignment team saw some of them in the morning, so we went back to the same area. The two rangers with us got out of the vehicle and showed us how they tracked the rhinos, using footprints, trampled and eaten vegetation, and feces. Although they were only a few minutes ahead of us, according to the rangers, we didn't see them. We saw another trio fo rangers monitoring the area for the rhinos. One of them was at the top of an 25 meter tree! They joined us for a few minutes and we returned to the vehicle. I'm kind of glad we didn't see any rhinos while we were out on foot. The rangers said we'd been fine, but I was still really wary of encountering them without a vehicle nearby. Though we saw no rhinos, we saw buffalo, including one that had to move off of the road for us, Grant's gazelle, impala, secretary birds, and zebra, including a wounded zebra which the rangers said would be picked off by the lions soon.

In camp at night, we saw bushbabies in the trees. As it was cloudy, we also saw lights from the other camp or village.

Today's the last day of assignments here, thankfully. The footprint assignment is dull, especially having done it twice already. Jack says the staff who haven't seen the rhino lab yet get to do so today. We'll see! It would be nice.