Rewilding
Throughout March this year, more bird species new to us were spotted including the square tailed nightjar and common cuckoo. This now brings us to 214 species on site, the latest being the Garden warbler. A number of species that were rarely seen have become more common and habituated.
Our Ross's Turaco pair hatched one chick which has successfully fledged, and the family can be heard and seen all over the property.
A number of traps were found and confiscated from a neighbour's land, clearly put in place to trap Guinea-fowls coming from our plot. Ever since, security has been on high alert and vigilant to confiscate any such traps when found. Sadly a dead mongoose was also discovered; mongoose get in trouble when they hunt local chickens or succumb to traps.

Guinea-fowl eggs were found by casuals when slashing new land except by then the eggs had been exposed in the open, with no chance of the mother coming back to it or risk being killed. The decision reached was to give a mother hen the eggs to sit on, all 15 hatched but in a few days 5 ran in to the bush, 4 died unexplainably, but 3 survived, coping well with the hen. They roam around the foundry scratching for food. Attempts are underway to habituate them.
The camera traps have seen little activity but the duiker, jackals , mongoose, hare and once the potto, have been sighted by staff.

On a Sad Note
On a sad note our chief tree planter and Nursery Head, Francis Bitaka, passed away on 31 March after an asthma attack. He has been a loyal and vital member of the team since 2012. His family were called but unfortunately by the time Medic Sarah and Isaac had rushed to his aid, he had already left us. He was laid to rest at his home in Kyemihoko village under his favourite Mango tree. The team were greatly saddened by his passing. May his Soul find rest. His funeral was attended by 1800 community members.

Art Workshop News
The main activity in the workshops has been finishing Peter Oloya’s new pieces. Ugandan born Peter completed a residency at Pangolin London, UK with a very successful exhibition. All his bronze works were cast in Uganda at the Rwenzori Founders and many were being metal worked and patinated while Films for Change were on site filming. Please read his exhibition press release here: https://www.pangolinlondon.com/usr/documents/exhibitions/press_release_url/125/peter-oloya-press-release.pdf
His BBC review also here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-68217014

Equally exciting news was our Stone carving workshop by Hans Ulrich Pauly, A German gemstone carver who came on residency and helped teach gemstone carving. Some beautiful carvings were made by the artistic Rwenzori Founder team and visiting Ugandan artists. The workshop was organised and supported by the Rwenzori Foundation, check out our photos in this post gallery.

Isaac summed up the workshop as follows:
"Pauly, Rungwe and Claude (Ruwenzori Foundation Trustees) arrived on site on the 17th March for the stone carving workshop, other Artist were invited to participate in the same workshop, Ms. Monica, Ms. Atim, Prisca Nyamori and Mr. Peter Oloya joined the team from England and Germany respectively on the 18th March, Oloya stayed in the house together with the team from England while the ladies stayed at a nearby residence in the village of kyemihoko a number of tools were brought by the team those donated by Pauly for the stone carving workshop and those that were bought for Rwenzori founders, the workshop started by setting up the tools which where new to the team and brought about lots of excitement that immediately the participants of the workshop started experimenting with the different tools and bits, under the supervision of Pauly and the next day saw a full throttle workshop kick started under watchful eyes and supervision of Pauly.
A number of pieces were achieved from animal , human figures, shapes, birds, earrings etc. done in beautiful Rwenzori clear quartz crystals, Kilembe copper stones, Jasper, rose quartz, crystallin white marble, among other beautifully selected stones from Sebwe, Mubuku river, from Rwenzori mountains and from Semuliki game reserve.

The outcome of the workshop was convincing, and gave birth to the idea, or rather the possibility of, an exhibition in Germany. More works are to follow as we accumulate a body of work for the exhibition. Pauly, and Foundation Trustees Rungwe and Claude left on the 28th. The ladies also left the same day, only Peter Oloya remained from the 28th to the 30 creating more works and took a number of stones to try carving from his studio. Stone carving Works still continues."