Get in touch with a researcher who had some pitfall trapping in the glades in the past, and I get permission to look through his old samples which are still stored at Mpala. Unfortunately the ethanol has evaporated from the crappy sample vials and it’s reacted with the large plastic storage bins, so I’m left with a bazillion stinky unorganized vials to sort through. I find the samples that correspond to the sites of interest, but the samples are all dried and crispy.

I decide to shift gears and write to the researcher about striking up a community ecology collaboration to use the data he’s already collected. He’s done a ton of sampling and identifying, and I think there might be some cool ways to analyze the data set. So I propose my thoughts and wait to hear back. I suddenly remember about some ant samples that were collected around Mpala several years (which, oddly enough, I helped identify before I had any notions of working out here) and write to see if they are still around. I hear back, and they’re still at UVM and available for my perusal. Excellent!

Word circulates that some crocodiles have been spotted by the pump house by the river (the same river water which provides our shower water to help us get ‘clean’). We take a quick investigative trip, but alas, no crocs today.

I was hoping to get some preliminary work done on the main research project going on here (=investigating interactions between termites and large grazing mammals) and I chat with our collaborators who are visiting to complete more sampling. Unfortunately the data have not yet reached a point to be informative, so I’ll have to wait to begin my project.

Catch a picture of a Red-cheeked cordon-bleu.

Enjoy some sundowners by river, which is in partial celebration of a successful Wild dog vaccination. It’s been two years in the making, as vaccinating endangered species is controversial, and rabies vaccination attempts in Tanzania resulted in a bunch of dead dogs. Forget to bring my flashlight to the lab at night. Thought I could manage the walk in the dark, but about seven steps into the total darkness I walk into a (parked) vehicle and realize I can’t see two inches in front of me. I retrace my steps, unplugged my laptop and keep it open, using the screen as my light source.