It's been a while... in fact such a long while that it's now the 1st of March... but I figured these photos and stories are from February so this can be a February update (Except the photo of Francois - he worked with us in January).

So... February... A rather hectic month! I started in a private reserve, finishing off the private reserves' fieldwork which was a lovely feeling. I tried my hand at bartending for an evening which proved to be a very interesting experience! Joost (my field assistant) and I bumped into Rian (a friend of mine) and he was looking for bartenders for a wedding at the camp he manages... we said "yes why not" and served drinks for many hours and then joined in the dancing for many more! A thoroughly good fun evening.

So that was one of the highlights of February... one of the lowlights was a week where every morning I woke up thinking "it just has to get better today" and each day it got worse... Joost fell off a motorbike and split his chin down to the bone - a visit to hospital required for stitching... a black mamba fell nearly on my head... the waterpoint where I wanted to work wasn't in the right place... it rained and my tent got flooded... Robert (another field assistant) came to learn the method so he can work while Joost is on holiday and that day we got rained out... It was endless!

But in February I also saw several brand new animals that I'd never seen before... there was a night sighting of a nearly 3m python in a private reserve (oh wow oh wow oh wow!!!), we had thick-tailed bushbabies in our campsite in Kruger (very cool!!!), then there were several other new snakes and the first leopard I've seen in South Africa. And a very cool sighting of a civet during the day

And now I'm in Jo'burg - came through for a workshop in Pretoria which was a massive learning experience... I was the only student in a room full of professors and very experience professionals discussing monitoring. A really cool opportunity. My trip got a bit extended thanks to a thorough stuff up of my registration at Wits (admin admin admin ) but hopefully that is now pretty much sorted!

I'm going to be disappearing again now for March and April - a long stint in Kruger with fieldwork and then a conference I'll try update at the end of April when I should be near an internet connection before I dash off for fieldwork in Mozambique... It's a crazy life