Burning – Day 4

Friday Feb. 26

Today we got up early to burn and discovered that, as with most fieldwork, plans change. Our colleagues from Harvard were having trouble with some drone equipment they were using in the KLEE plots and we got started after giving them time to fix things up. We burned the ungrazed plots and those grazed only by cattle, and the burning went cleanly. The Brachiaria lachnantha I and Pennisetum stramineum are starting to leaf out after the rains we got a few days ago, which slows down the fires. As we approach the end of the burns, we are starting to think about a part of the data we would like to take a closer look at. We may look at burn patchiness, bird foraging, or ant evacuations, as well as some other ideas.

We went on an evening game drive and found the lions that have been eating at a zebra kill for four days now, as well as our first black-backed jackal encounter and some senegal galagos. It was also a good day for those of us interested in birds since we found an ostrich, a kori bustard, and a meyer’s parrot.

– Alex Graber Neufeld