After 4 days here it looks like I may have a chance to access the internet tomorrow.  The Elephants I saw earlier this evening along the river have come into our camp so I am stuck in the common room for now. Kate, Sonia and Elena are watching a video on a laptop and I have plenty of time to write a new post.
5 days ago I was picked up in the morning from Lilongwe Wildlife Centre by Australian Amy (Urban Hyena Project) and put on The Zomba bus which was supposed to drop me off at  Balaka, a town near Liwonde. However, there were 3 other near-empty Zomba buses standing nearby  competing for customers – free trade Malawian style. The hours ticked by slowly as I got to know some of my fellow travellers and listened to a very spirited lecture (in Chechewa) about Herbal Tea from a feisty Malawian lady going round the buses. Finally (after 6 hours!) the bus  was full and ready to leave. Just at that moment Amy called to inform me it was now too late for me to be picked up at Balaka and that I must get off the bus and try again tomorrow. When Amy picked me up and returned me to LWC, I  hardly spoke  to her I was so angry. After a Passion-fruit Fanta and a nice shower I decided I felt much better and decided  not to trust my transportation to incompetent research assistants again; the reliable Cazz organised a taxi for me for a reasonable price and next morning I made the drive to Liwonde in style. It was well worth it, the landscape alongtherift valley was like something out of a fairy-tale and we arrived nice and early in Liwonde.

Here I was picked up by Matt who is in charge of the African Bat Conservation camp. We drove for about 1/2 an hour, first on a pot-holed road and then down a dusty track till we reached the park gate. There we parked the car and sat to wait for a boat to take us across the river. And what a river! The Shire (pronounce She- re) rises out of Lake Malawi and flows South to the Zambesi. It is huge and full of Crocodiles and Hippos. As we sat on the jetty, dodging the droppings of numerous Cormorants perched on the massive trees, an African Fish-Eagle swooped down to the water a few meters in front of us. Since picking me up Matt and I had been talking non-stop about Birds, Bats, Insects, Reptiles, Bush adventures and so on. I was delighted to find such a kindred soul, he reminded me of myself at a much younger age, though I wasn’t nearly as friendly and polite in those days.

Things only get better and better. The camp is simple but adequate. The team are all young students and soon after I arrive we already set off into the bush to catch bats. The place is a student-style mess, they all sleep late in the morning and I can wander around and watch birds along the river – keeping a careful eye out for Crocs, Hippos, Elephants and Buffalos. The diversity is amazing, I can sit at one spot and species after species fly past along the broad river or hop around in the tall Fever-trees on the bank. The star is the stunning Bohm’s Bee-eater.

We catch bats, collect insects, record habitat- all sorts of Zoological stuff. I’m not so interested in the research itself, I just enjoy the whole thing. My knowledge of Insects is put to use in a project of analysing bat shit. I find some flesh-eating beetles on a Buffalo carcass and set up a digesting box for some dried out dead bats they have stored for skeletonising. I cook lunches, wash dishes and maybe next week I will have a morning with the neighbours who go out every morning tracking Rhinos. Fun, fun, fun.

Its just too much at the moment to write a coherent post about. And I probably won’t be able to upload more than a few chosen photos tomorrow when we stop at Liwonde village (after marking cotton plants in the agriculural area for crop damage assesment – comparing plots were bats are excluded ,the idea is to show how beneficial bats are in pest control)
There are some Elephants here – not many, but they have a bit of a reputation. In the dry season they swim across the river and raid crops in the neighbouring Malawian villages, causing devastation and sometimes loss of life. Everyone is pretty scared of them. This evening I was down by the river at sunset and things felt funny – the birds were quiet, the Impalas and the Vervet Monkeys seemed skittish. Then a couple of hundred meters upriver first one, then another and another – 5 Elephants emerged from the woods and started breaking branches off the trees. Now they are around the camp and everyone is sneaking around on tiptoe. I love it. There are a couple now right outside – shaking trees,breaking branches and rumbling in their bellies – we can see them in the moonlight. I think I will stop here, but I guess I’ll have to wait a bit to go and have a shower.