Introductions and Birds

With all our course introductions out of the way, we are finally starting to get into the meat of the course.  We had our first lecture on Saturday on the biomes of South Africa.  It was a great reminder of why I love ecology and nature.  It was fascinating for me especially since the climates of South Africa and San Diego are so similar.  Both are Mediterranean climates that are driven by winter rains and fire.  It is both interesting and comforting to feel a level of familiarity with a country that is so foreign and distant from home.

We haven’t seen many animals yet as we’re in a game preserve that does not contain large predators.  We saw some impala driving in and have seen their tracks on our walks.  At one point on a walk, we thought we heard dogs barking and as we looked around us like idiots searching for the source of the barking, one of our professors quietly and nonchalantly remarked that they were baboons.  It took us all a moment to realize what he actually said and were shocked that we were so close to such amazing animals!  Other than that, we have seen several gorgeous bird species, like bee eaters.  I don’t have any bird pictures yet as my binoculars have been my main tool for looking at birds and we don’t have strong enough internet to upload pictures, but I’ll do so as soon as I can!  The view is absolutely incredible – it would be foolish to even bother trying to describe it without a picture.  Until next time – Totsiens!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 30th, 2012 at 11:11 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Introductions and Birds”

1. rrreed says:

   June 19, 2012 at 3:25 pm

   Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with some pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is fantastic blog. A fantastic read. …

   Canada, for whatever the reason always was a stronghold of the Tories, a condition further strengthened by many former American colonists, who at the outbreak of hostilities and especially after the success of the American revolution, moved to Canada….