Gobabeb has begun a few
newer research projects, instigated by the arrival of some new research
equipment graciously donated by Dartmouth College after their annual visit to
Gobabeb in November 2015. Among these research tools is the much-hyped drone,
which had been used by the Dartmouths this year to begin mapping hummocks of
!nara around Gobabeb and the Kuiseb Delta (read their report HERE). Our ongoing
research on the !nara is benefiting from the arrival of our new ‘eyes in the
sky’, as we endeavor to continue this !nara mapping around Namib-Naukluft Park.
Which is what brought us out
to Far East, the weekend of 18th December this past year: mapping the !nara. We
drove past Saagberg Mountain and the vast valley of stubby grasses and big sky,
bumping along the euphemistically-labeled ‘track’ towards a secret series of
!nara-filled hummocks. Eliza Hoffman, our Dartmouth intern, had previously
arranged several flights over these hummocks, which Gillian and her !nara team
have already done research (ongoing research) on the phylogeny and condition
over time on these dense populations of !nara.
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| Setting up the "batcorder" over beautiful sunset. Saagberg ("Saw tooth") mountain in the background |
After we had overcome the
tremendously bumpy track, with the help of fearless off-road driver Jess Sack,
we arrived in between our targeted hummocks in time for sunset. While we set up
camp and enjoyed the view, we began setting up a “batcorder” (or bat
echolocation recorder) to record in the area while we were there. This is part
of the ongoing bat surveys that one of our newest arrivals, Angela Curtis, will
be working on for her Master’s degree. Since we’ve little idea of where and
what kind of bats frequent different corners of the Namib, she’s looking for
evidence of bats in all kinds of places - !nara hummocks included! (You can
read more about her project HERE). The drone flying would happen in the
morning, but we would have to find the approximate “take-off” points that Eliza
had programmed into the flight paths for the two hummocks. The take-off
scouting of course gave us the chance to explore the area – and the stunning
scenery that is the Far East. While I was scouting around the hummocks, I got to hunting after the subject of my would-be pet-project: the Namib golden mole. The trails were fantastic (and fresh!) around this hummock, and you could clearly see the diversity of spoor left by this one little critter. Check out some of these meandering trails and surprising spoor...
Popcorn and wine for dinner,
set to the background chorus of barking geckos. We all embraced the productive
silence around us – just knowing that there was so much life around these
dunes, that it existed inside this bubble of Namib-Naukluft Park, is somehow
very comforting. And there really is nothing like star-gazing in the desert!
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| Panorama of the dunes surveyed; courtesy Jessica Sack |
The next morning we set up
for the drone launch. Here’s the general
gist of the drone-flying set-up: there are four modes for the drone, STD
(Standard) = hovering, LTR (Loiter) = hold position, AUTO (Command to take the
planned flightpath; essentially ‘autopilot’ for drones), and RTL (Return to
Launch). For our drone at least, it’s not recommended that you free-fly it with
the joysticks – remote-controlled car-style. This uses up a lot of battery, and
since our drone doesn’t have a lot of juice to each of its lithium-ion
batteries, it’s more productive to use the pre-planned flightpath feature. Once
we’ve set up the ‘launch pad’ for the drone – consisting of a tarp laid on the
ground for the drone, and the computer perched and ready with the flightpath
and control panel up – you can start setting up our drone for flight.
HOW TO FLY (THE GOBABEB) DRONE (ish)
Step One: Plug in the
battery at the base. Usually, we let it sit for a half-minute or so once it’s
lit up and started searching for its satellites. The controller and computer
panel will tell you when it picks up satellites. Once it’s R2D2-beeped at you
relaying this message, you’re good to continue.
Step Two: Attach the camera
to the base of the drone. We’ve hijacked a shock-proof Canon point-and-shoot to
take continuous photos at regular intervals, which we just Velcro-strap onto the
belly of the drone and turn on before lift-off.
Step Three: Connect the
drone to the computer. This is an important step, to ensure that the line of
communication between what the drone is doing and the computer is registering
is clear. The drone’s flight path will be on the control panel, and they’ll be
‘talking’ during the whole thing – relaying everything from its current height,
speed, perceived wind direction, etc so that you can read it all from the
computer and foresee any possible issues with the drone.
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| Pilot Eliza and Meg watching drone lift-off at Dune 1 |
Step Four: “Arm” the drone.
This basically tells it to get ready for flight, and it starts up its
(surprisingly noisy) engines.
Step Five: Lift off! For our
quadcopter, you just flick the left toggle down towards the right, and slowly,
carefully throttle up with the joysticks to the needed height before you select
the AUTO mode and it launches into its flight plan. For the drone to keep
connection with the computer, the controller needs to retain at least 40%
connection; the controller will conveniently beep for you if it senses it’s
getting too far away from the drone.
Once the drone is up, up and
away, you’re mostly just watching it – for us, we had at least one person
watching the computer control panel and relaying information as necessary to
Eliza, who was piloting with the controller. Although it does mostly ‘fly itself’,
it’s important to watch the drone anyway – sometimes flukey things will go
wrong, and it’s better to be watching in case you have to make an emergency
landing, or if it strays from its path have it RTL. Our first flight, for
example, went pretty swimmingly – until the end, when it was returning to
launch, hesitated about 200m away from the launch pad, and promptly began
plummeting towards the ground. Since we saw the battery was declining too
rapidly, we were able to anticipate this, and Eliza caught the drone before it
could get itself tangled up in a spiny thorny !nara mess. And we also knew why
this happened – we saw on take-off, once satellites had registered the global
position of the drone, that our chosen start-point was a little bit further than
the programmed one. So the drone ended up traveling further from the launch pad
to the start of the planned route, and was thus a tad short on juice on its
return flight.
Our second flight went
swimmingly too, as we all watched the drone zooming in line-transects above the
swaths of !nara. Following the flights, we did some sample surveying of the
!nara being photographed, noting the sexes of the plants (one of the things
we’re interested in looking for patterns about with widespread !nara mapping;
since !nara plants are dioeceous [plants are either male or female], there
might be interesting insights regarding where male versus female plants
predominate) and noting general condition. Worryingly, many of the plants we
observed were getting absolutely hammered
by the wildlife in the area – the female plants always get a little beaten up
in the frenzy over the fruits, but many of these plants’ conditions was cause
for concern according to our resident !nara expert, Gillian.
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| Eliza, Meg and Gillian survey !nara hummocks |
And the future of these
plants is a big reason for the ongoing work that Gobabeb is doing into the
!nara plant, given the relatively recent developments in !nara tourism
products, and the resulting conflicts facing the Topnaar community. Read more
about !nara and the work that Gobabeb’s team is doing on our website.
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