Location: Ewaso Nyiro River Camp, Mpala Wildlife Conservancy, Laikipia Valley
R's daughter is sick from all the traveling so the professor J showed up. We did team-building with the graduate students also living at river camp, C, K, and W. The activities were the stereotypical electric fence (with the criss-crossed wires you have to stick your teammates through so that everyone can get to the other side) and the lava river (with firepit cushions as our safety rafts :).
We then went on a field trip to the red soil and black cotton soil ecosystems, both of which are present inside the conservancy. The red soil has much more biodiversity and we saw lots of giraffes and zebras there. When we got back to the cars, the drivers were like, "Weren't you afraid out there?" And we were like, why would we be afraid? And they were like, "Whenever you see zebras and giraffes in the same place, there's always lions." Just glad we had the ascari with us.
Next, we went to the black cotton soil. The soil there is made of a dark grey clay. There are only 5 species of grass, 2 types of trees, and 4 species of ants. C brought us to a clearing that had greener grass and no trees--a glade. He asked us what had happend here. C's research is about how bomas cause glades which later lead to differences in productivity--so our first guess was that a pastoralist (herder) had corralled his livestock here in a boma at some point and their defecation had brought about an increase in nutrients for that area, but he said no that wasn't it. There were a lot of holes in the ground and a few patches of grey soil. C eventually gave in a told us that there was a termite mound here at some point, and, much like cattle, the termites had brought extra nutrients to the area and deposited them in the clearing. They had also devoured all the trees within a given radius, much like the pastoralist who remove trees from their corralling areas to use as boma fences.
We have a lot of readings to do but I don't yet have a course pack so Jody is letting me borrow hers when she's done with it. The readings are all either about the black cotton soil ecosystem or the livestock-wildlife interactions in Laikipia Valley.
I saw an elephant today. Actually, we saw a lot of elephants today. They're kind of like squirrels are to Michigan here. I saw a squirrel today. Just one.
Dinner was fish, rice, beans, tomato soup, carrots and zucchini.
Jody and I have named the cricket living in our tent Bonner.
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