Back in Chongzuo for my first pilot study.  The day after I arrived, Typhoon Rammasun, the strongest typhoon to strike southern China in over four decades, was hot on my heels, but because Chongzuo is inland, we avoided the worst.  All I can complain about is losing three days of field time to the rain.

This morning, I finally set up a sampling transect in a nearby sugarcane field.  The fields are still soggy from the rain, but easily accessible.  I can blame the typhoon for one other thing – many of the larger sugarcane stalks have been blown to an awkward angle, making the fields much harder to cross.  Although I didn’t observe any uprooting or stem breakage, I’m not sure whether they can still be harvested.  I sure hope so, for the farmers’ sake.

After three days of rain, the butterflies were out in flocks, ravenous for nectar and other nutrients.

This pollinator was apparently salt-starved.  It licked my sweat for as long as I would let it, nearly five minutes.