Merry Christmas!

Sorry for the long absence. I've been in the US for a very good holiday.

Here is a waterspout (I think) that I photographed near Lilongwe recently.

I returned to Malawi through Paris this time, and given the
confusion in the Netherlands, I'm glad that I did. Charles de Gaulle
Terminal F is neat, with it's transparent roof.

Happy New Year!

Liwonde (2)

The waterbucks are not too wild.

What people mostly go to see are the hippos. One place I stayed
had a hippo come out of the river and graze on the
lawn after dark. During the day they mostly stay in the river.

Sometimes they are interested in the tour boats,

and sometimes they aren't.

Liwonde National Park

I know that some of you think that I must never work. Actually,
I just take fewer pictures of work, because I'm...well...working.

This is the Shire River south of Lake Malawi, where there
is a dam to regulate the flow of water. It is wide and slow
and home to birds and hippopotomi, and crocodiles, though
I didn't see any of the crocs.

The surrounding country is low and dry and hot, and home
to many baobab trees. They are the ones with the thick
trunk at the right and the left.

Lots of marsh birds, too.

Road Trip to Makanjira (2)

We even weighed the twigs and leaves.

Here are some Faidherbia trees left in farmers fields
so that their leaves become fertilizer for the crops.

Makanjira could become quite the tourist haven if
they paved the last hour of the road. It can be very pretty.

We hope that this contributes to measuring of trees
for carbon in farmer's fields, so that they can be paid for
raising these trees.

Road Trip to Makanjira

I was part of a team of researchers that took a trip to
Makanjira, Malawi in October to measure the amount of
carbon in Faidherbia albida trees. The trees above, at our
research site, are Faidherbia and are bigger than the rest
because they were on the edge of the plot.

We measured the diameter of the trunk,

And the height,


then felled 45 of them for close measurement.
We cleaned off the small branches and measured
the circumference and length of the trunk and
all of the major branches.

More next week...

Wildebeasts and Lions!

The guide said that wildebeasts could travel 70 miles in a day.

These were watching a male lion. Now I know why they call
him 'King of beasts'. This one walked like he
owned the whole county.

The female lions were relaxing closer to the gate.

The guide said that we were lucky, that usually the lions
stayed out of sight.

Antelopes!

I think that the ones with racing stripes are impala and
that the large ones are hartebeast, but I'm not certain.

This is the mother and baby,

And this, I think, is the father...

African Buffalos!

Africa has buffalos similar to the ones in Asia, but these aren't tame!

The driver told me it was common for them to charge,
and I believe him!

Baby Barn Swallow

A pair of barn swallows nested in my stairwell the last couple of
months. They are the proud parents of the baby on the left
in the picture above. They like to swing from my clothesline.

Here is the whole family perched on the neighbor's garage light.

It rained last week, and cleared some of the dust and smoke
out of the air. I saw this mountain from my front porch
for the first time in two or three months.

Birds!

The park had a few ostriches,

And an eagle on her nest,

And some vultures sitting in a tree, but you can see
vultures sitting in a tree in any part of Nairobi.


On the theme of birds, here is a photo of a bird
that I just took near the nests that I posted on
August 8th. Does anyone know what it is?

Giraffes!

These giraffes look like they were looking at Nairobi,
but they were really staring after a lion.

Part of the day was cloudy.

And part of the day was almost sunny.

And this one stopped and posed for me.

Zebras!

There were a lot of zebras in the park, and
they didn't mind being photographed.

They are very near Nairobi.

They weren't too worried about being caught
between two tour groups.

The colts were a bit more camera shy.

Nairobi National Park

I went to the ICRAF annual science meetings last week
in Nairobi, and took a couple of vacation days
to be a tourist. The Nairobi National Park is right at
the edge of the city.(You can see the skyscrapers
on the horizon behind the acacia tree.

Most of the park is savannah, like the picture above
but a small part is wooded. It gave the antelope in the
picture below a place to hide from my camera.

The park is crisscrossed by dirt roads,
which I suspect are difficult to manage in the
rainy season. Stay tuned for zebras and
giraffes and lions.

Pictures from a village

I gave a friend a ride to a village about an hour from town
last weekend, so that she could buy several sacks of corn
for her family. These corn stores are made from woven
wood slats, and store the corn in the ear. This was the
largest one that I had seen.

The goats in the village are allowed to roam free range
after corn harvest. They are in good shape, and look
like they will have kids soon.

This is a local board game called Bao.
Stones are put into the holes and moved around,
according to some strategy, maybe like checkers.

Hello again!

Sorry for the long absence, work has been really busy lately.
I realized about three weeks ago that the birds were singing again
and that winter was on it's way out. I went outside to look
at the birds, and found light blue finches flying around
with nesting material. There is one sitting in the middle
of the picture, facing left. they are shy and hard to photograph.

I looked up in another direction and saw these nests.
They are near my office, and I plan to keep checking on them.

The barn swallows that sit on my windowsill seem happy
to see warmer weather. They sing a lot more on sunny days.