March 17. What a difference a half hour plane ride makes! Lewa is as green and lush as Wamba was dry and dusty. Our Earthwatch base camp here is on the grounds of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. This property was once a cattle ranch, but in 1983, it was fenced and set aside for black rhino protection. Since then the Conservancy has continued to grow. This is one of the last, and perhaps largest, of Kenya’s wild lands that is privately owned. It has more wildlife than anywhere in Kenya, except for the Masai Mara Reserve, and more endangered animals than any other protected area. It is breathtakingly beautiful—open grasslands with lots of animals and a view of snow-capped Mt. Kenya in the background.

But it is zebras we’re here for, so this afternoon it was back to “Zebra School” for us to learn about this week’s research. In addition to the zebra census work and transect studies that we did in Wamba, we will be doing behavioral observations here. There are always new things for us to learn, so we had a training session after lunch. We are learning what it’s like to be students! It’s hard to sit and listen for very long after eating a big lunch, isn’t it? We want to learn everything, but we were getting very s-l-e-e-p-y…