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Published: June 17th 2009
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field assistants in KLEE plots
Matthew, Frederick, and John walking through one of Truman's KLEE (Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experiment) plots. (All that silver-yellow dead grass should be green at this time of the year.) The field
This place is bone dry. Usually at this time of the year, the rains have greened up the place, swelling the rivers, and wrecking havoc for researchers who want to drive through clay soils to their sites. (Walking in this wet clay soil is akin to wearing moonboots.) But now the dust from the vehicles makes you want to roll up the window as you drive by, the water in the tanks next to the bandas (huts where researchers stay) is brown because it's nearing the bottom, and there is not a spot of green grass. The only greenness is the dark, small leaves on the spindly acacias and the occasional light spot of a forb that has survived amidst the dying grasses, sometimes even pushing out a small vivid purple or pink bloom.
But there were butterflies! I'm looking at butterfly abundance response to different herbivore regimes. Meaning I work in these large squares of land that my advisor set up long ago that variously exclude and include different types and combinations of herbivores: large ungulates (giraffes/elephants), small ungulates (zebra, gazelle, oryx, etc.), and domesticated Boran cattle. I am surveying the main family of butterflies and the bush
Cadaba bush
My study plant they specialize on, Cadaba farinosa. An unremarkable bush, even duller green than acacias, and usually remains pretty low to the ground with teenager-like awkwardness, no grace or symmetry to it. But the butterflies like it! And it's easy to spot which is always a plus in plant work.
The field clothes
I've been told that I have a reputation for being a fashionable field-dresser. Which is amusing since the field is the one place where I honestly (I swear!) don't pay any attention to what looks good, only what is comfortable. I chalk it up to the cowboy hat though. Thank you Texas for inspiration and thank you Dovi for providing said hat.
Sundowner
Sundown is a popular excuse for a small party in wildlands. Sundowner usually is at some especially scenic spot, Baboon Cliffs (magnificent vista), Lookout Rock (comes with hyrax), or Hippo Pools (obvious). Last night it was at Hippo Pools. At the height of it, we had six jeeps there and multiple cases of Tusker, the Kenyan beer. One British researcher made the mistake of saying that Tusker was a decent laager which caused an immediate silence among the other foreign researchers. My Kenyan labmate, Wilfred, was
Cadaba flower
Not flashy but very sweet-smelling there and repeatedly thanked me for hosting him in California half a year back. (Housemates, he asked after all of y'all and hope you were doing well!) Occasionally as people were chatting in small groups, one or more would start bobbing to the music coming from one of the jeeps, an almost rhumba-type beat with Swahili lyrics. Baboons squabbled across the river, kudus and elephants (a safe distance away) moved quietly amidst the smooth, greenish-yellow-barked fever trees, and the hippos nosed their way across the wide, slow part of the river while a pair of Egyptian geese waddled on the far bank.
One thing I can't get enough of is all the accents around this place, American, British, Scottish, and all shades of Kenyan. All the Kenyans have a rounded tone with low voices which, for the newcomer, is hard to discern and their speech pattern is definitely different than what I'm used to. You know a foreigner has been here for a while because he or she will change their sentence structure to mimic that of a Kenyan.
No Kenyan women were hanging out with us because no Kenyan woman works with the researchers. The only jobs women have
Colotis spp.
Specialists in both the larval and adult stage on Cadaba bushes. (And they're easy to see when flying about!) They all are small butterflies with pure white wings (sometimes black markings) tipped in vivid oranges, reds and pinks around Mpala are house-cleaners/cooks or the lone receptionist. And the wives of the field assistants or office staff are not invited by their men-folk to such get-togethers. Occasionally there's a female grad student but most of the Kenyans I knew before and talk to now are men. I rarely see even the cleaning women since they work while I'm in the field. My labmate Wilfred commented on how the women in my country are so independent and know what they want but it is not the same in Kenya. In Kenya, they must cook and clean and stay at home. His tone almost sounded as if he was rather impressed with US women (or perhaps he was just accepting of the differences) so I asked him if that is what he expects of his wife, partially expecting a qualified negative. After all, I know she works in the day for an NGO. But he promptly responded with "Oh yes! She always cook. I never go in the kitchen. One time I went in and my daughter, my little daughter, yelled to mama, 'Mama! What is Daddy doing in the kitchen? Daddy is in the kitchen!'" He laughed at how shocked
van der Decken's hornbill
Ubiquitous around the Centre, flapping heavily and squawking a complaining, frog-type noise his daughter had been about his intrusion into the female domain. Different worlds...
Animal reports
Birding here is like birding in Louisiana or Texas coast during spring migration. The Von der Decken's hornbill is very common around the Mpala Centre, squawking a raspy frog-call and posing in a very dignified manner despite the fact that its weight causes the acacia limbs to bounce up and down and the fact that its large red and yellow beak is nothing but absurd.The superb and Hildebrandt's starlings also abound, flashing around in their fluorescent green and blue and watching us closely as we eat, darting in to grab the unprotected buffet items. The American in me winces whenever starlings are around but these are native and they are very beautiful. But still thoroughly starling-esque in their behaviour, rude, bold and ubiquitous around humans.
I asked the KLEE field assistants, John, Frederick and Mathew who work for Truman full-time, what animal they have always wished to see. For many Americans, the animals they live with (zebras, elephants, giraffes, lions, etc.) are our dream animals, the ones we promise that someday we'll go see in the wild. So what do Kenyans want to see? Bears
dwarf mongooses
A family of them were cavorting on an old rock ring outside my house. They like to be in squirming, interwoven bunches like this, seeming to do little than other watching intently for intruders and cozying up to one another. (Note: the poor quality of the photo is due to the fact that it's taken through my binoculars. Only way to get good close-ups!) and tigers was the reply. Definitely bears. They don't have anything like them here, not even in captivity.
Sightings
slender mongoose
chin-spot batis
vitelline masked weaver
silver-backed jackal
Egyptian goose
bat-eared fox (night only)
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ariel
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Field Hat
When you find a usb cord or friend who will let you download directly, please post a picture of you in your ten-gallon!