Essaouira is a beautiful. It has a wonderful classy charm about it. The harbour is filled with small battered fishing boats, men selling their freshly caught catch of the day and al fresco dining everywhere. The beach is sandy and if you walk away from the medina gates trendy cafe and bars are dotted along […]
Camp is delightful! It has a wonderful simple charm while still being pretty modern compared to other field stations. The “mansion” as it’s been christened, is raised above the ground with wooden boardwalks linking the main house to the kitchen and other areas. Camp is all wood with a tin roof and few glass windows, […]
Today I’ve decided to stay at the B&B. No gallivanting down country roads or hitching a ride with 9 other people in a four-seater car. It rained hard all evening and this morning so I thought it best not to travel. I’ve given the hotel manager some cash and bought some fuel for the generator […]
When I started this study I was curious to find out what factors could be affecting the well-being and indeed the long-term survival of wild chimps in the Budongo Forest. I had no idea how many complex layers I would uncover in the process of probing and I’ve also come to realise there is a […]
Next week is my last at camp Budongo. I feel quite emotional about it. I love the surroundings, the staff; field assistants, the researchers and Mary’s cooking (chapatis just won’t taste the same elsewhere!). It will be hard to leave dry-eyed even for a cynical old boot like me. Nine weeks have vanished, but I […]
My interview with the National Forestry Authority (NFA) didn’t happen on the day I had scheduled it. Bad weather, the Easter break and lack of transportation meant it had to be postponed. But when I did finally catch up with the officer in question I was mildly surprised by how refreshingly honest he was. He […]
They say good things come in small packages and one new species recently discovered is so small it weighs the same as just three cups of cereal. A feather-weight among primates, Berthe’s mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae), is 10cm long and weighs around 30g. This primate is so small it even trumps the pygmy marmoset (Cebuella […]
January 31, 2015
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