This week was very busy for me. We mount cameras that take pictures at night in our experimental farms, and we have over 30 cameras that take pictures whenever something moves in front of them. Now that the crops are growing and elephants are in the area, we have to monitor all those cameras and make sure they are in the right spots. We've also starting meeting with area chiefs to see if they are interested in receiving important information about how to coexist with elephants and improve their livelihoods. So, I was in the field on three separate days in the hot sun!
One of the neatest things that happened this week was that we started seeing a lot of baby animals with their parents. In Kenya it is spring, which is when lots of babies are born. There were bird babies, such as bustards and francolins. Some of these I have never seen before, but just got lucky. We also got to watch black-backed jackal puppies twice! There are lots of other animals (like zebras) that we keep seeing that are expecting babies.
The hard thing about this week has been all of the bug babies, too! There gets to be so many bugs at night that sometimes you just have to get underneath your mosquito net and wait till all the lights go out! But bugs are important to the ecosystem, so we leave them in peace.
