Saturday, July 15, 2013
Today is the first day of "Operation Ostrich", a program me and about twenty other University of Iowa students were hand picked for. We will be monitoring Ostrich population in the Southern Africa Savanna region. There will be about 10 Jeeps covering the area and the journey is planned to last almost all day (9:00am-8:00pm)
8:00 - Our jeep has pulled out along with 9 others and we have began to explore the savanna. everyone is keeping a close eye on the horizon.
8:46 - We spotted our first set of Ostriches. It is a small group of 4 along with 2 gazelles drinking out of a small water hole. Everyone has kept this in their Field Journal and we currently have a population of -4 Ostriches-
9:00 - So far we have only seen the 4 ostriches. We have seen two lions and a whole herd of Gazelles.
10:24 - Our group stopped for a snack break and we then continued another 12 miles before we came across a group of 8 ostriches around a greenspot in the savanna. One actually came up to our jeep and one of my colleagues was able to touch it. We now have -12 Ostriches-
11:11- We came across our third group ostriches. A group of 5. Two males looked like they were fighting. The others were just laying about. We now have -17 Ostriches-
1:54 - We stayed at the third group of ostriches and ate lunch around the ostriches. None of the ostriches were territorial animals and all were okay with our presence. We set off again and were able to come across another group of 4 only a few miles away.
3:23 - Its the heat of the day and everyone is tired
Today is the first day of "Operation Ostrich", a program me and about twenty other University of Iowa students were hand picked for. We will be monitoring Ostrich population in the Southern Africa Savanna region. There will be about 10 Jeeps covering the area and the journey is planned to last almost all day (9:00am-8:00pm)
8:00 - Our jeep has pulled out along with 9 others and we have began to explore the savanna. everyone is keeping a close eye on the horizon.
8:46 - We spotted our first set of Ostriches. It is a small group of 4 along with 2 gazelles drinking out of a small water hole. Everyone has kept this in their Field Journal and we currently have a population of -4 Ostriches-
9:00 - So far we have only seen the 4 ostriches. We have seen two lions and a whole herd of Gazelles.
10:24 - Our group stopped for a snack break and we then continued another 12 miles before we came across a group of 8 ostriches around a greenspot in the savanna. One actually came up to our jeep and one of my colleagues was able to touch it. We now have -12 Ostriches-
11:11- We came across our third group ostriches. A group of 5. Two males looked like they were fighting. The others were just laying about. We now have -17 Ostriches-
1:54 - We stayed at the third group of ostriches and ate lunch around the ostriches. None of the ostriches were territorial animals and all were okay with our presence. We set off again and were able to come across another group of 4 only a few miles away.
3:23 - Its the heat of the day and everyone is tired