Yesterday we (Miriam, Robert and myself) were returning to the institute after a few days away when we saw something remarkable. I was driving. It was about 5:40 in the evening and 8 km after the park gate. It had rained and the road was slippery. The track has improved a lot the last year
Giant Squirrels Spotted in Bwindi!
The other day I was making a phone call in the corner of our compound (where the best reception is and I can look out over the forest and see Congo in the distance!). All of a sudden I saw an animal I had never seen before jumping from one branch to another. The thought
A Day with the Kyaguliro Family
Today I’d like to tell you about the daily experience of field assistants like myself monitoring the Mountain Gorillas of the Kyagurilo group, which is the best known group in Bwindi thanks to the many years of research that the Max Planck Institute has carried out. ITFC arranges this daily activity; a group of four
How Wild are Bwindi’s Bananas?
Ok, please brace yourself for the conclusion of this gripping story. Today the truth will be revealed. If you have followed the previous posts (here are the first and second) you will know that having blogged rather long-windedly about Bwindi’s supposed wild bananas I then discovered that there were no official records of these plants
There Goes My Potatoes
Two days ago my field of potatoes was raided. I lost about twenty sacks of potatoes, which would have helped to feed my family and some of it I would have sold to help pay school fees. I found out that a troop of baboons had raided my garden in the afternoon, just when the
Tracking Wild Bananas
A lighter one this time. Today we went hunting for African wild bananas. Really. They are not common but I had spotted some distinctive plants in a nearby valley and wanted a closer look. As with so many Bwindi stories this one started with a steep descent. The easiest path followed the park boundary. The
Our Ordeals for the Global Good
Recently I went to the Northern Sector of Bwindi, with a small team (Badru Mugerwa, botanist Robert Barigyira and visiting student Fredrick Ssali), to locate the proposed plots for global monitoring (TEAM; see Doug’s blog ‘WHAT IS THE POINT?’ for the background story). The first day was not easy and ended in an unexpected way.
Lake Mburo – An Oasis of Life
Lake Mburo National Park is a jewel of a protected area. When we need to travel from Bwindi National Park to Kampala (The capital of Uganda) Lake Mburo is one of the places we can stay. It provides a welcome break in what is otherwise a long dusty journey on poor roads. I recommend it
Sharing the Daily Lives of People Around Bwindi
We people around ITFC live in an area of steep hills with valleys. Many of us have to walk long distances to reach water sources, but some people have small plastic tanks to collect water from their roofs during the rainy seasons. We grow tea and tobacco as cash crops on a small scale. Beans,
Placing Plots in Bwindi Forest: What is the point?
Clutching our equipment and a few scribbled notes, we descended into the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. We were not looking for Mountain gorillas. We were coming because we plan to watch the trees. In fact, working with instructions from Conservation International in the USA, we were going to check out proposed plot ” VGBIF4P”. Not as