Field notes, v1307
Page 171
Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. | www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
these, H. 1990 October 29 from last night, and he in turn talks Vincent the Game (continued) Grand into trying it. Vincent seizes the lizard behind the head, it struggling and gaping, holds it a few seconds and says there are waves moving up his arm, then gives it to Bob and runs several meters laughing, shaking his arms, and jumping. John the cook flat refuses. Dennis tells me there are no fish in this swamp. We break camp and take short walks in the AM then leave between 1/00 -1/30 h, first around the end of the swamp then back by the trail we came in on - probably ~5km total. Part way up the steep first ridge NE of the swamp Vincent catches up to me and says he promised to show me gorilla nests - so he has been up to that point and will later return to organize the photos. At 12/20 and 12/33 h I grabbed adult Bufo hopping beside the trail. At ~1/30 h Vincent takes me ~50-75m off trail down a gorilla trail -basically trampled down vegetation ~1m wide that crosses our trail and goes out over a steep slope of open (no big trees) dense vine vegetation. We fall through constantly. He shows me two nests a few meters apart, each a trampled down platform w/ dung on the edge, one where an adult has been and one where a juvenile slept. A few minutes after we crested that ridge a storm came through that lasted over an hour and thoroughly soaked us; some thunder and lightning and rain in dense blowing sheets. I stayed warm, thanks to a polyporsine undershirt and Gore-tex rain jacket plus my largely useless pancho. Rain ended as fens and I walked through