The Irish Ambassador has my email address

More pictures of sights around Chitengo

Some of the baboons we see every day.

 

Here's a local dove of some kind.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

We went on another drive around the park today. Kevin is here to help with Ryan’s capture work and to do ultrasound on the animals they collar, but they haven’t been able to start working yet because they’re waiting for the park veterinarian to arrive. As soon as he gets here it’ll be Game On for Ryan and Kevin, but right now they’ve got time to just enjoy the sights.

A lonely little wildebeest. Can you find him in there? He's just to the right of that little clump of bushes. It's funny to think that these guys are actually a rare sight in Gorongosa.

Bush pigs! Much fuzzier than warthogs.

A water buck. Note the target shape on its behind. This is one of the first antelope critters that I could recognize on sight. They just look so different from all the other types. They're so fuzzy, almost like an elk.

Some kind of eagle. You can never tell in pictures, but this thing was really big. I wish I knew what it was.

Almost everything has thorns over here. Some plants even have thorns growing on their thorns!

Typical African plains picture.

Here's a close up of one of my favorite trees over here. A fever tree.

Crocodiles! I saw crocodiles!

Guinea fowl. Yep.

Here's a cute little orobi.

Another fever tree. Expect lots of pictures of these things.

Here's a kudu on the left and an impala on the right. I think the kudu have such amazing horns! Sables grow pretty cool horns too, but I don't have a good picture of those yet.

Serious impala is serious.
Actually, he looks more like the Impala of Moderate Disapproval. 

You can't see me if I stand veeeeeeery still.

Who'd have guessed! Another fever tree.

Friday, June 13, 2014

The big excitement today was not that big or that exciting, but it did give a start to some construction workers who were raking up the leaves under a tree about twenty-five yards in front of the cabin. There were about ten of them raking away at the underbrush when suddenly they all jumped backward with shouts of surprise.

A little vine snake had popped up in the grass. It was small, with a bright green head and a grayish, bark colored tail. Very cool looking. About twice as thick as a #2 pencil, it wouldn’t seem like that little snake was worth all the fuss and attention it was getting from ten fully grown men…

…until you take into account how extremely venomous they are. As much as I adore reptiles, if I come across a snake with enough venom in its bite to make my chances of dying much greater than my chances of living, I’m going to give it a respectfully wide berth as well. 

Luckily, they’re also really mellow little fellows. This one didn’t even seem disturbed by the agitation of all the great big noisy people around it. It just wisped away to another tree and shimmied up the trunk faster than you’d think possible from a creature with no legs.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

So, I have now met his Excellency, the Irish Ambassador to Mozambique. Yes, you read that right. No, I’m not joking. He is here visiting Gorongosa right now, with his daughter, whose name I didn’t quite catch, and the only reason I met him is because there are so few people in Chitengo right now that, if you walk around a little, you can bump into pretty much everyone here in a few hours time.

Our small talk lasted all of two minutes, and I spent the entire time telling myself to not sound like an idiot. So, I probably did a pretty good job of sounding like an idiot.

He was nice enough to take some pictures of Caden for me, when one of the helicopter pilots currently working here let Caden sit inside his helicopter. The Ambassador was the only one with a camera on him at the time. And he was nice enough to offer to email me the pictures. So, yeah… the Irish Ambassador has my email address. ;-)

Anyway, moving on.

Caden has helicopter fever big time! Whenever we go out walking he begs to go look at the helicopters on the airstrip. He could and would stand and look at them and walk around them and touch them and climb on/in them for HOURS if I let him. Future pilot? Maybe so.

Ryan has been doing capture work for two days now. Things are going well, but you won’t hear any of the details from me. Ryan’s going to tell you all about it himself in next week’s post!

P.S. Sorry if I seem a little lackluster right now. I got hit with some kind of allergy this week and I feel like I’m in the middle of a spring hay fever. Yuck.