Mopane Mapping

So I’ve been asked a couple of times when I’m going to update my blog… well here it is! Some of it at least – the last 4 months on OTS is going to have to wait.
At the moment, I’m busy helping map the southern border of Mopane with SAEON (South African Experimental Observer Network as part of SANParks). The theory is that with climate change/global warming, and with Mopane being such a versatile tree and occurring EVERYWHERE (or so it seems!), the southern border should move south. So we go walking… and walking… and walking… I think today we did about 15km in 5 1/2 hours. We have these “blocks” which we walk transects through every 50m, and on each transect use a nifty program on a PDA called CyberTracker so we can record when we walk into a mopane patch, when we walk into “other” patches (not often) and the density of mopane in a 10 x 3m strip on the transect. Then we get back to the office (in Phalaborwa – although in 2 weeks we move to Olifants for a week) and download the data and use GIS programmes to draw pretty maps of where we think the border may go. That’s the project in a nutshell…
… but it’s a lot more fun than that! Everyday we have walked into the big 5, and got relatively close as well. The first day, we followed elephant around, and then right at the end of the morning, when feet are dragging and the thought of lunch and a nice shower (preferably cold – there’s a reason Phalaborwa is said to have the 2nd mildest winters in the country!) are overwhelming all other thoughts, we literally stumbled upon a leopard, but didn’t see it. It was the only time our game guard, Godfrey, loaded a round in his rifle! This thing was so close, that when it “sawed” you could feel the vibrations in your chest! We’ve also walked into buffalo a couple of times and more elephant. We also get to see all the other stuff as well – I’m beginning to get concerned at the number of vultures we are seeing – do they know something we don’t? We saw a huge chameleon one day, a striped grass snake on another and there are these awesome ants which make paths because so many of them walk along the same route so often.
We’ve also been down to Orpen where most of the mapping happened last year to try and determine what the optimal plot size for accurately doing counts and demography is so that permanent grids can be set up. Afterwards, we stopped at Wits Rural to say hi to some friends.
But all work and no play is no fun – it’s impala rutting season so I often try to head butt others in the group with impala horns that we find lying around. Mental note: Buffalo horns and skulls are heavy! Don’t try to head butt someone with them! Flicking of impala droppings at the person in front of you has also become a favourite pastime – the problem is getting the droppings without them seeing you get the droppings! We tend to finish most mornings by lunch time so also get to do some game drives. Last night, we went to the Grand Opening of Woolies in Phalaborwa – a much anticipated event. So much so, they had a band going and the traffic cops for crowd control. I’m not joking! After struggling to find parking (I think every car in the greater Phalaborwa area was there!), we decided it was too much and waiting in a queue about 100m long to get in just didn’t seem worthwhile, so we turned around and came home! That’s right – we missed the event of the month if not year!
Tomorrow, Calley and I are heading into Magoebaskloof for the weekend – might try to do some hiking and just visiting places – about to do a “things to do in Magoebaskloof” search. Then next weekend we are back in Skukuza for the weekend and then off to Olifants. Will attempt in that time to start getting some of the last 4 months “journalled”

Haven’t taken many pics from the Mopane project yet, but there are some at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lancasterjenny/MopaneMapping?authkey=Gv1sRgCKmHs6CRi9mVMA#