Summer at Mpala

Jambo!

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far. I have been in Kenya for about 6 weeks now and am way overdue for posting on this blog!

I’ve been staying at Mpala Research Centre, a beautiful field station in the Laikipia District in western Kenya. Most days I go out from 7-12 in the morning and 2-5 in the afternoon to record superb starling calls and do playbacks; it’s exhausting but awesome. I’m posting a shot of me in the field with my gigantic microphone! There are about 30 other researchers staying here; we share lab space and eat family style meals together in the dining hall-usually ugali, sukuma wiki, lentils, and other African or Indian dishes-and I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know everyone else. Sometimes at night we have a ‘sundowner’ on a cliff or lookout where we can relax and take in the scenery before the temperature drops and it’s too dark to walk around outside.

So far the trip highlights include meeting Maasai warriors that pass through the roads beside our nest sites, driving a rickety 1980s jeep through the bush and having to push start it at least once a week, having close (and sometimes scary!) wildlife encounters, presenting a poster at a regional wildlife forum, and hanging out with local kids at their conservation club meetings. I have been missing some conveniences of home, but overall things here are great. In fact, I’ve decided to extend my trip until the end of July- kind of crazy considering I was so unsure about staying here for more than a month!

I’m putting up some other pics taken here at the research center; one shows the elephants grazing really close to the dining hall and the other’s a nice sunrise shot. More updates to come soon… Can’t wait to hear what the rest of you have been up to!

Kwaheri :-)