Bird I.D and Bush Camp

Date Written: 8/6

It has been a relaxing couple of days. Now that we have done the majority of the exciting bush walks and drives, we have been mostly doing habitat assessments. We have started doing bird point counts where we stand in a circle and make note of all the birds we see and hear. We had one lecture on bird identification and calls, but it no where near covered the vast amount of birds that reside in the bush.

Some birds were easy to recognize, like the infamous go away bird. Aptly named too, because its called sounds like it's squawking, 'go away!'. Or the black collared barbet, which repeats, 'black collar' over and over again. These were the easy birds to identify. 

(Yellow Billed Hornbill i.e. ZaZu from the Lion King!)

The ones that did not have recognizable calls that didn't sounded like words or phrases were extremely difficult. We are starting to get a lot more autonomous with habitat assessments and they're a lot easier to do. Hopefully bird point counts will become easier as well!

(Lilac Breasted Roller)

Tonight is our second night in bush camp. The camp is surrounded with an electric fence like base camp, however it doesn't have the same amentities (running water and toilet facilities) as base camp. We're staying in army sized tents that can easily fit about 30 people, and have had our lectures and bush activities in the same manner that they were if were were back at base camp. 

We hung out around a campfire and the other American and I introduced the people

from the UK to the amazing treat that is s'mores. 

It's crazy to think that we have so many foods that they don't have, like PB&J sandwiches, but we also don't have a lot of their foods, like rusks or digestive biscuits. I'm learning so much about different delicious foods, I'll have to try to make them when I get back to America!

- Erin