First time out driving on my own!

Went out by myself for the first time last night into South! Dave has been doing these large exhaustive loops where he makes a note of every mammal encountered which takes him quite a few hours, he left at 5:30 this morning and just got back now at 1pm. This means he isn’t going out in the evening, and Wes was still at Ololoolo getting supplies and Julia wasn't feeling well so I went out alone to South territory in the Maruti. Unfortunately I saw hakuna! However I didn’t get lost or stuck and successfully navigated around south territory, so I felt pretty good about that.

This morning I transcribed for north territory and got to see some good behavior at north den and some new feeding avoid w/ food behaviors while we were driving around. Starting to get the hang of these den sessions! Also saw my first leopard! Still up in the tree from where Wes saw it yesterday (let me tell you Wes had a much more interesting evening yesterday than I did!), where I could see a paw and a tail. Also two lionesses strolling across the road. Yesterday on his drive to get supplies Wes also saw Digs and two cheetahs. Cheetahs! Can’t wait to see a cheetah, which Dave also saw one this morning. Super jealous. AND a caracal!! Though that was yesterday, again by Dave. Apparently Digs just walks right up to the cheetahs who got all poofy and archy and ran off. Hyenas.. no respect.

And last night Strummer again! He and Ramone were noisy around my tent for over half an hour pulling and chewing on things. In the morning I can see they cut the line holding the tarp up over my tent in addition to pulling up some of the tarp underneath my tent. Lots of baboons being noisy in camp now.