Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The working week.................

Verona and Jay
Jungle camp


Well a pattern is settling in and that's always nice.  Our midday activity each day is to do a transect and I do this with 2 local trackers, Verona and Jay. They are skilled in finding the animal tracks and my job is to record the details and the GPS location on these 2 hour surveys.  Yesterday we started at a site at the jungle base for the project (we'll be moving there next week - very basic, only solar power, no chance to charge batteries etc and no wireless connection at all).  The transect there was to look for signs of leopard activity and Jay did actually find some footprints - it was in beautiful primary jungle containing old ebony trees but the terrain was awfully steep and it was terribly hot.  Today's transect was in the elephant corridor and here we are more exposed to the sun and walking through shoulder high grass (panicum sp) - today we also recorded a fresh elephant foot print and some older elephant dung. Back to base and I'm in the cold shower quick as I can before lunch - and I hate cold showers so that shows you just how hot, sweaty and revolting I feel at the end of the transects.


Since I'm the only volunteer at the moment our first activity every morning at 6am is now 2 hour bird surveying.  There are 3 sites we'll survey around the base camp to record the birds.   Verona is being developed so that she becomes familiar with the local birds and she will carry on the school program moving forward.  So Verona, Chinthaka and I are doing this on a daily basis while I'm here and it's wonderful..........   My timing here is great since the flagship species for the project is the elephant and the strategies that have been put in place over the last 10 years have been really succesful and so now they can afford to give more attention to all the other species that do well here as a result of falling under the umbrella of activities to preserve the elephants.  A bird appreciation/education program that takes in the community and the school too is just starting here and so the donation of the 2 binos has gone down very well and it's great to have been able to do that for them and great that people were prepared to donate them for me to bring.





In the afternoon from 4pm we go to the elephant hide and watch for elephants - we got 3 yesterday afternoon.  (Chinthaka has just told me that he went to the elephant hide today when we did the transect and discovered a huge snake sleeping in straw roof! He's looking through field guides now to see if he can identify it). We finish around dusk and that time is terrific to get all the species that are best observed then - such as Yellow-eyed Babblers who emerge briefly at dusk to call from an exposed branch and the Barred Buttonquails who are often seen running along the dirt roads as we drive back.  Last night I mentioned to Chinthaka that it was like 'peak hour' traffic time when we headed home at 6pm as we were passing so many tractor drivers, cyclists, walkers and a couple of motor bike riders on the dirt 4WD roads - at one point we had to manouevre around a tractor on a narrow stretch and it took us long enough to make the acquaintance of the other party and when Chinthaka told them I was from Australia they called out  'Adam Gilchrest' and had a laugh.

We don't work weekends and so Chinthaka has made another good suggestion for this weekend and that is to, again take public transport with him when he goes home to visit his family near Kegalle (also near to the famous Elephant sanctuary that everyone visits).  Chinthaka has booked me in a bed and breakfast there around 8 kms away from the main tourist drag and close to Kurulu-kele forest which will have some wet zone species so I can enjoy another birding destination that hadn't been on my itinerary.
Unidentified frog at base camp last night

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