20:45, Thursday, 30 June, 2011

Happy Birthday Mom! I think the world of you and love you so much!

Yesterday morning we came upon a scene similar to the one on the twenty-fourth over at Happy Zebra. Following distant hyena whoops, we came upon Midler, Regina Spektor, Hoobastank, Gin Blossom, and Daisy May gorging on a topi kill. Over half of the Happy Zebra clan was surrounding them, alarm rumbling and groaning, trying to rustle up the courage to get their meal back. This time I’m sure it was the hyenas that made the kill; some of them were bloody. We were all cheering for them to mob together, but I don’t blame them for deciding against it. Thirteen hyenas might have been able to take on two lionesses, but subadults are unpredictable. And Midler and Regina are HUGE.

We chilled with the lions and hyenas for the rest of the morning, so as not to miss any critical incidences. The lions were just plain ridiculous. They gorged on the topi until they were absolutely obese. They all lay around on their sides in a ring around the remaining antelope carcass, their bellies bulging so that they shouldn’t have been able to walk. A couple of times one of them would get up, walk a few steps, and promptly fall back down into the grass as though unable to stand. However, Regina proved that they were still mobile when a hyena ventured too close. She automatically whipped up and chased him giggling away.

I have to throw in here just how fond I am of black-backed jackals. They are courageous little buggers! Both times that I’ve witnessed lions and hyenas in the aftermath of a food battle, there has been a little jackal in the mix. Jackals will sneak in and grab some of the carrion any chance they get. Still, they don’t look like they weigh even a tenth of a hyena, let alone a lion. What admirable characters.

Back at camp, Lia and I decided it was time to do some exploring. We set out up the forested hill beyond the choo. There were vines hanging from the trees, and I half expected Baloo (sp) to hop out from behind one of those trees and start singing the Bare Necessities. We discovered some hanging pots and were puzzled. Then we saw Koi’s head in one of them. It looked like something out of a hyena horror film. Koi was the alpha female of the Happy Zebra clan, but died at the hands of lions. After necropsy, hyena heads are placed in these pots until the flesh rots off or is eaten by bugs. Then the skull is kept for analysis.

Further up we found a path. Presumably it was that of an elephant judging by the poop. Past the poop, a beautifully constructed termite castle forced us off the path. We could see we were almost at the top of the hill, and the bravery of one ratcheted that of the other until we made it there. A topi behind the bushes announced that we had reached the savanna. What a vulnerable feeling being on foot here! It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before, quite indescribable. When the topi became aware of our presence, it began to snort in our direction, until its cohorts and the hartebeest beyond were alerted as well. I knew it was time to go when I peered behind the last row of bushes and saw a cape buffalo a ways off. We certainly didn’t need him discovering us!

What a jolly old time feeding mongooses, listening to music and working on our projects with Dave that afternoon. I am putting all of my data into a massive spreadsheet. The organization makes me feel much more on top of things, but it has slowed down the individual identification. I only have one more lion named as of now. It is the male that I thought was a female, and his name is Murdoch. I talked to a lion researcher from the Serengeti named Alley who was over visiting her balloon pilot boyfriend (who looks EXACTLY like Bill Murray), and she told me that Murdoch might actually be a hermaphrodite!!! I guess only about three of them have ever been recorded in the twenty years of the Serengeti project.

Alley and Jason (Bill Murray) came on night obs with us. We found two more lionesses. One got up and started rubbing her head under that of the other, and they cuddled together for a while as soon as I put down my camera.

There were bat-eared foxes everywhere last night! If you want to see something cute, google bat-eared fox. Then picture one of them folding its ears flat back and scowling at you. It just made me love them even more, contrary to the effect they were hoping for I’m sure. A pack of banded mongooses badumping along tickled me further. All of them ran to the top of a termite hill at once, basically tripping over one another in the process. After a brief pause they all continued down the other side. They were like a mass of little parts that together formed one big mongoose being.

At the South Den there were hyenas EVERYWHERE. It was chaotic. Badger and Taj were fatter than I have ever seen a hyena. They were waddling along like pigs. Taj was covered in mud as well, adding to the attractiveness of her belly scraping the ground. I met Martin, a fine-looking hyena with an exceptionally large head. She played around with one of the cubs who was not her own; Dave said that both of her cubs had died. I witnessed more phallus-sniffing greetings, in which hyenas stand next to one another, head to butt. (In case you weren’t aware, female hyenas also have a phallus, one of the things that makes the species so unique). The subordinate hyena usually lifts its leg first, and then each individual sniffs the other. I also observed a coalition between a cub and an adult. They walked bristle-tailed together at another hyena until it backed off. It seemed unprovoked to me, but who knows?

Bedtime came, and with it thunder that literally shook my bed. But not even that could keep me awake, even when coupled with the age-old lion-hyena rivalry being voiced in the distance.

This morning we couldn’t go out on obs because of the rain. The day passed quietly and pleasantly. I set out water for the mongooses, and spread crumbs evenly beside the tent so that even the shy ones could get their fill. There is one particularly bold fellow that growls others off of his food. Cutest bully I’ve ever seen.

The Skinners stopped by briefly this afternoon. It was good to see them. Sarah asked me if she could use our “loo.” :) She is going to come on obs with us tomorrow.

We found four more lions tonight, but didn’t get close enough for me to recognize them. I am anxious to look at the pictures and figure out whether they are new. Other than that, it was a pretty quite night. But would you know, jackals sound EXACTLY like dogs. For some reason a bunch of them were barking as the last light of day slipped away. A warthog was also being particularly talkative, sounding somehow like a radio in the background the way it was screaming and carrying on. Odd for sure.

The stars! Oh my goodness, the stars! I don’t think I have ever seen them like they are tonight. They are probably twinkling so brightly and numerously because it is such a special person’s birthday. And the crickets are chirping-no rain yet! Pray it stays that way. Word has it the wildebeest are finally on their way.

Oh, and I forgot: hyenas yawn repeatedly when they poop. One of the most hilarious things I’ve ever seen.

21:19, Tuesday, 28 June 2011

This morning we shouldn’t have needed an alarm, given that a lion was roaring about 300 meters away. The shining stars and moon promised sun as we stepped out of our tents into the cool air.

My favorite hyena moment of the morning was when all the cubs out of the den were laying in a pile, as they usually do, and little Mari came over and just climbed up and sat her little butt down on top of the pile, struggling to stay balanced. She is the cub who most likes to cuddle, laying her head down on top of the other cubs’ backs and shoulders, regardless of what position they are in. I just want to pick her up and cuddle her.

We didn’t find any lions this morning even though we drove around looking for them. However, we did come upon a pretty awesome group of elephants. The matriarch was HUGE. I would be happy to live in a house as big as she is. In contrast, there was the smallest baby elephant I think I’ve ever seen. Its little gray back was barely visible above the grass, and until it got up towards a mound all we could see was a thin moving semicircle of gray. An older juvenile elephant seemed to be babysitting it, following it around and keeping a close eye on it.

Dr. Seuss Ville was full of giraffes today! They dwarfed the trees, and something about them being in that area of abundant yet spaced acacia trees just looked really awesome. A short ways beyond that was a baby Grants gazelle in the road. I could have taken a family photo, because the male and female were both there with it, and no other animals close by.
When we returned to camp, Jorgio and Moses were “mowing” the camp grass. They walk around with really long-bladed, slightly curved machetes, bending over and swinging their arm backwards and forwards so that grass tops fly everywhere. You wouldn’t believe how effective it is!

I found out today that most of the delicious water we have been drinking is actually straight up rainwater. I couldn’t believe it; everything is just so excellent! AND environmentally friendly.

I had a good chat with Senny up at the lodge today; I went with Dave to get gas and make some copies of lion whisker charts and profiles. I explained to her why I feel studying animals is important, because she was unsure as to why anyone would want to bother doing so. However, she is very fond of mongooses, because they keep snakes away. She smiles and calls them “good people.” Senny is such a cheerful and smart person, her English flawless. I hope she gets to return to college, which is where she wants to be.

Speaking of mongooses, ours were back today! It was so great to see them. We fed them cinnamon rolls, which they seem to enjoy more than peanut butter bread. Before I knew they were back, Lia said she had enticed five of them to come right up under the table!

Although the sun had been out and hot during midday, yet another storm rolled in just as we should have been going out for night obs. It rained very hard for a short while. Dave was stuck at the lodge, where he had gone to visit his balloon pilot friend. Lia and I ate dinner alone; we missed Dave, but it was also kind of fun having it be just the two of us. And I got a lot of lion work done, constructing a spreadsheet to organize the haphazard data I have been collecting. It was nice to sit in our tent with the windows open, smelling the rain while we worked. But gosh darnit, those wildebeest are never going to arrive if this keeps up. I need them to come, if only to make sure my data isn’t biased by the long grass obscuring my view.

Right before bed, on the walk back from dinner, we saw a jerboa or jumping mouse or some little something with a long tail and big mouse-like ears running along the ground. It was scared of our headlamps and climbed the tree where I was earlier amusing myself by trying to get a good look at a lizard that kept scuttling to the opposite side of the trunk. Then the frenzied little sprinting mouse-like creature suddenly fell to the ground with the remnant of a thud. I think it was okay though, because I couldn’t find it on the ground anywhere. It climbed a tree, shot down a branch and fell off of it within about two seconds. Whatever it was needs to do some deep-breathing yoga.

An enormous slug different from the orange one is outside of our tent tonight. It pulls its little antenna-eyes in when I touch it, and then if I wait awhile, it starts to poke them out very slowly, and I can watch as they timidly elongate again. I love doing that with slugs at home; the only difference here is that the slug is about ten times as big.

22:40, Monday, 27 June, 2011

This morning we found Bellagio, an adult female hyena, play-romping with Pala, her little cub sister. I had never seen an adult play until then; they were so cute. Bellagio chased Pala around a termite mound in one direction, and then would spin around to catch her coming from the other side. They also wrestled, play-bit, and chased one another. When Pala would become interested in something else, Bellagio would gently nip her hind end, stirring the pot just enough to get Pala to turn back around and start playing again.

While Lia was doing her water bottle trial, Bellagio joined the cubs in investigating. It is so neat having a full-grown hyena look up at you from right below your car window. They really are a very impressive and unique animal. Bellagio’s eyes almost had a little red tint to them. I really like her; she is one of my favorite South Clan adults for sure.

We found three male hyenas walking around the savanna like a gang together beneath the rising sun, and watched as they social sniffed, parallel walked, and just hung out together while traversing the plains. After watching these males, we drove past a wildebeest sprinting around a group of about seven other wildebeest. They are what Dave calls the “weird wildebeest,” or the ones that are here year-round instead of migrating. Dang it! I thought they might be the first strings of the event we are all waiting for.

We took a new track after leaving the den. It went through what previous researchers had named “Oz Valley.” What a gorgeous drive, winding through woodland brush in the dips between luggas, or driving along the side of huge hills, tilted towards the valley of treetops below. I fully expected to see a snake while driving through there, but no such luck. The overall feel of Oz Valley was home. Something about the trees, taller wet grass and chilly morning took me back to the days I would play in the grass fields around home with my dog Belle. However, one very pronounced difference came in the form of a giraffe.

We found seven more lions after leaving Oz Valley! One was across the full and rushing river, so it was difficult to get good pictures of her, but six were along the road. One of the males in the group of five we came to had no mane; I was all ready to name this new lioness Aretha because she looked so powerful and had so much presence, but then it stood up and revealed the reason for its abnormal hugeness. I’ll be coming up with a different name for him. We speculate that something in his genes is amiss. I think the lone male we saw was Mumford, but I have to get all of my data organized to be sure.

Another incredible thing we witnessed this morning was two male giraffes boxing. One was very dark, offsetting the light-colored one. We didn’t see them actually swing their necks at one another, but they circled each other and stood in position for neck-swinging, trying to avoid the dangerous behavior until it became necessary. How lucky we were to find them at such an exciting moment!

Steph and Olly came over to camp today for a visit, since they are in the Mara to meet Howard, Steph’s husband and Olly’s dad, who is a safari guide. She brought all of the lion and cheetah data from when she was keeping track of individuals, and gave me a much better method of organization.

I sighted the little green snake over by our tent in the afternoon! When it noticed me, it did some sort of reptilian threat yawn several times, opening its tiny mouth wide. I kept losing it because it blends in so well with the grass. Later, while reading A Primate’s Memoir in my hammock, I about had a heart attack because I heard a frantic rustling of leaves coming right towards me. I half expected to see a mamba come to get me some fast scrambled eggs with miboga. However, it was just a toad that has been hanging out by our tent, very American-looking except for the yellow stripe down the center of its back. A couple of seconds after it ran under and out the other side of the hammock, the green snake came slithering very fast along behind it. I cracked up at the chase, and was relieved to see that our toad seemed to have escaped being lunch.

On night obs, smarty-pants Angk cut the rope to the water bottle right away, rendering Lia’s trial useless. But we found Mr. Bieber, all sunny-looking in his blondness, lying nonchalantly atop a mound on the side of the road. More data! Woot woot! I also spotted a jackal pooping, and we decided to collect it for a stress hormone test. No one had ever collected jackal poop, and so it made its debut when I picked up the warm feces with an inside-out plastic bag. Back at camp, I learned how to scrape it into a test tube, which was challenging because it was chuck full of hair. We stored it in the liquid nitrogen tank containing all of the poop samples.

Amanda and Chris made cheeseburgers for us tonight! So exciting. Jorgio and Moses even ate with us, saying that they wanted the full “mzungu” (white person) experience, as we also had asked them to make their delicious french fries and a salad. We teased them that their skin looked lighter after they were done eating. I wish they would eat with us all the time; it feels worlds better that way, and they are so pleasant! I learned from Amanda that crocodiles (and alligators) are cannibals. And I must correct myself from the other day; I doubt the hyena chewing on the crocodile skull had killed it. Apparently radio collars show rather that crocodiles are a big mortality source for hyenas. I also learned from Moses that cape buffalo and hippo don’t get along, as we heard two individuals fighting nearby. I’d be curious to see who would win such a fight.

Before bed, I noticed that there were little shiny, pretty glints periodically on the ground that I hadn’t really considered before. Focusing my headlamp, I discovered that they are the eyes of a very delicate looking spider. Neat!

Not a night goes by without the sounds of our resident leopard.

10:11, Monday, 27 June, 2011

On Saturday morning, we all slept in until the ripe old hour of 8:00. At last, it was sunny. Everything was wet so that the surrounding woods felt fresh and alive. The weather has been odd lately. I think of the weather at home as predictably unpredictable; here I find it to be unpredictably predictable. It tends to be very chilly in the mornings and at night, fairly hot during the day under the intense equator sun, and cool again at night, with rain showers usually only appearing at dusk. Although the days are variable, the season is constant. The Mara is at an elevation of 5,000 feet, so it is not terribly hot like most people would expect for somewhere in Africa. But lately it has been cool even at midday, and the clouds and haze have abounded, resulting in at least a little bit of rain and thunder during the day as well as at night. It has been so good to see the sun again the past couple of days! If the current pattern of rain continues, then the wildebeest migration will be pushed further and further back; I really hope to see it come while I am still in the west camp.

Shortly after breakfast, some friends of Kay’s came over to visit. They are from England, and come out to the Mara periodically to do some hobby photography. Their names are Sarah and Andy Skinner, and their friends Christian and Eddy. They had tea with us, and were delightful to talk with, especially concerning their brilliant accents. I noticed that British people, or at least these ones, tended to end all of their sentences with questions: couldn’t we? didn’t it? wasn’t it? didn’t you? isn’t it? It was charming, really. I would love to sound like that. However, it became very hard to stay awake regardless of how entertaining these new people were, and the accents became a uninterrupted swirl around my head until we were allowed to get up and move around again, at which time they left. Such interesting people I have been meeting out here!

As Meg was preparing to leave, Lia came and told me there was a big male baboon on the rock between Meg and our tents. I couldn’t contain my excitement! Baboons in camp at last! I walked gently over, but when I stopped to watch him, he became frightened and came down from the rock to go further back into the woods. He stopped a little further, and I walked calmly to sit on the rock where he had been sitting. He looked at me, seemingly unsure of what to make of this overly interested human. After a few short moments, he became wary again, and moved away. I continued to sit on the rock, expectant of more baboons, and indeed his troop was close behind him. I was so thrilled, but then I had to leave because everyone wanted a group picture before Meg and Zach left for Nairobi. But after bidding a sad farewell to Meg (we will surely miss her!), I immediately ran up past the choo, in the direction they were previously heading. I caught a glimpse of a male, and cautiously entered the little forest surrounding camp. It is so beautiful back there! I watched a foraging female through the trees, barely breathing; I think she saw me, but I’m not sure. A big male jumped up into a small tree, and it cracked and came crashing down. I was VERY tempted to keep following them when they started to move off, but I knew it wouldn’t be wise to do so alone since male baboons can get aggressive, especially towards white women. How I would have loved to though! I hope they return soon, even though I’m pretty sure Jorgio and Moses would feel the exact opposite had they known they were there.

During night obs, Lia put out a kong at South Den for a new novel object trial. The cubs were ADORABLE with it. At first they were all timid, touching it with their noses and jumping back, until Thylacine was finally brave enough to pick it up, tugging on it in an attempt to free it from the car. After it would swing back, Thylacine would lie down in front of it, and then do what is called a carpal crawl back up to it. Hyenas are digitigrade, which means that they technically walk on their fingers/toes. When they carpal crawl, they walk on what corresponds to the back of the human hand, folding back their paws so it looks kind of like they have only stumps to walk on. They are crouched down so that their back feet do kind of a duck-walk/scoot type thing as they move forward. It is a submissive behavior, and it was very interesting to see them do it towards a kong. I wonder if the behavior signifies more than just submission. But at any rate, eventually Jigs, another cub, stopped chewing on the kong and moved to the rope. Uh-oh. The rope was chewed through, and Jigs looked up at us out of the corner of his eye as he gingerly picked it up before tearing off with it. Kong loose on the savanna! We drove quickly after him, and had to get super close before he would drop it. Then I jumped out, barefoot in the middle of the vast expanse of gorgeous tall grass, the hyena cubs still disoriented and unaware that I was standing in the midst of them. After searching around for a moment, I grabbed the kong, resisted the sudden urge to go running and spinning further across the savanna, and hopped back into the car. What a thrill! When we drove back to the den, I felt kind of bad because two of the cubs kept sniffing around where the kong had been, and four other ones came and looked up at us expectantly, waiting for more toys to randomly fly out of our vehicle.

Returning to camp in the dark, we came upon two widely spaced orange eyes, facing directly at us in the dark. I was trying so hard to figure out what it could possibly be, thinking a buffalo, but that just didn’t quite fit. A hippo was blocking our path. Golly, do they ever look creepy in the dark! We waited at a safe distance as it took its sweet time moving off of the road. Oh hippos. The roadblocks out here are better than anywhere else in the world: giraffes, elephants, cape buffalo, hippos...

The following morning we could be found at North Den, black cubs squittering and nursing, older cubs romping around. I really like going to North Den in the morning, because the cubs are always so active then! Panda and Johny Rotten are usually the instigators that run around and get everyone up playing, except those whose mothers are currently present, grooming or nursing them. Lia deployed an old water bottle while we were watching them. She has been gathering good data to measure cognitive ability based on boldness and curiosity. It’s really neat that the cubs even come up towards the car and investigate, if you think about it. What curious, amazing little creatures! No one could figure out how to get his/her mouth around the water bottle. Angk and Gloc actually began to aggress at one another, not just play, over the water bottle. Finally, Angk figured out how to grab the rope that was wrapped around the tightly screwed cap, and pulled with all his might, only to have it snap back towards the car. Before long, the rope was chewed through again, and the trial had to be ended.

It was a quieter morning across the rest of the savanna; even the antelope seemed to be fewer than normal. We did see a troop of banded mongooses, and a huge group of giraffes with FOUR little ones. There were also several babies out: itty-bitty tommies with wind-farm tails; zebra foals with brown fuzz, sticking close to their mothers; stubby-horned topi learning to act silly while watching their older conspecifics; beautiful little impala mixed in with the harems. One lone male impala stuck out its neck, nose in the air, and made a great throaty grunt that seemed unfit to come out of such an agile being. Then, I offhandedly commented on how the guy in the back of the passing tourist vehicle looked like Adam Sandler. Without batting an eye, Dave said it very well could have been. Apparently a lot of celebrities come out here, and the balloon pilot that is a friend of the hyena camps has flown Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolee (sp), and various other emperors and big names. So I may or may not have seen Adam Sandler on safari yesterday.

During the day we rode to trade vehicles with two people from East Camp. I got to meet Dave’s girlfriend Julia (EXTREMELY nice person), and the research assistant Tracy (AWESOME person as well). Knowing there are great people over there will make switching to East Camp in a couple of weeks much easier. On the return trip, a vervet monkey hopped onto our stopped car while we were out talking with the gatesmen, one of whom uncannily resembled Barack Obama. Good thing we had rolled our windows up.

Last night Alice came with us on obs. It was great having her along. The cubs at Happy Zebra were amusing themselves by running through a big water hole near the den. Upon leaving the den we came upon Skittles, a hyena that everyone thought was dead because she hadn’t been seen in so long. She was eating an ostrich! I guess hyenas don’t kill ostriches, and my theory is that it got struck by lightning. Skittles is a very different-acting hyena, very paranoid and yet seemingly completely unaware of our presence. She kept coming up to the ostrich and then looking around repeatedly, not feeding as would be expected, although her belly did not look full. Just by how she was acting, I began to think she might have some sort of psychological disorder, and therefore was immediately intrigued. I was happy that we were going to follow her when she suddenly tore off a leg and went walking down the road with it- perhaps to an unknown natal den somewhere? But her mystery remains unsolved, because the wet black cotton mud in the culvert swallowed up our tires. It was a blast trying to get it unstuck: Alice, Lia and I pushing with all our might, barefoot it the squishy mud, while Dave manned the front of the vehicle, then searching around for rocks to put beneath the tires in the dark, and finally sitting atop the vehicle in defeat while waiting for rangers to come pull us out for the next half hour or so. We turned off our lights to keep the bugs away, and I cannot express how impressive the savanna is in the dark. So quiet and huge, nothing but a flat expanse of dark grass on either side of the road, a pair of jackal eyes here or there. We did turn the maglight on and check for wildlife every now and again, but things were pretty quiet where we were- quiet and perfect. Our friend Larigen (sp) came from the lodge to rescue us, along with Segurian and another guy that I don’t know. Segurian hopped out of the car, and after saying hello, he looked at the car, then at me, then at Dave, and said jokingly with a straight face, “Are you stuck?” Larigen had us out in no time. Such a wonderful person, Larigen! He kept saying how terribly sorry it was that we had to be stuck and wait out there, so content to be helping us, not the slightest hint of annoyance at being called out to come and get us.

It was hard to fall asleep last night, because a bunch of baboons started screaming, probably being hunted by the leopard I then heard. Zebras were also vocalizing, and then an eruption of giggles announced our hyenas were involved in whatever was going on. It all sounded unnervingly close.

15:26, Sunday, 26 June, 2011

Happy Birthday Jacob Warstler! I hope it’s super, and I can’t believe that you are twenty-five. Craziness.

The party on Friday night was an experience! It was up at the lodge, which is where a lot of the safari drivers and rangers of the Mara Conservancy stay. There is a tiny little restaurant there called Sarafina’s. It is comprised of a very simple room, not very big, with round and rectangle tables covered with checkered tablecloths and crowded with people of handsomely dark skin, talking while turned towards a TV in the corner. At our table was everyone from camp except for Moses and Jorgio, who elected to stay behind. There was also a nice guy named Olanik (sp), a Kenyan named Alice who was born in England, and a character named Segurian (sp). Olanik liked my name, because it is similar to “Jana,” which means yesterday in Swahili, and I always use the comparison to help people know how to pronounce it. Every time I saw him after that, he would say, “Jana, sio leo!”, which means “Yesterday, not today!” :) Alice is an awesome person; she is nineteen and volunteers at the conservancy. She has the most excellent accent, a mix of British and Kenyan. She will be going to college in England in the fall, where she attended two years of high school and visits often. Alice advised me on whom to watch out for; she pointed to one guy and said that he seems very nice, but is really a jerk. Then she pointed to her friend Segurian who was sitting right next to her, and said that he is blunt and rude and says whatever is on his mind, but if you tell him to bugger off he will, and is really a nice guy. Segurian looks like Kalin Lucas, and does in fact seem like a tool, but he is rather funny. He calls Meg “Mista Meg”, and also randomly tells her that she looks like a porcupine, which makes her laugh.

For dinner we had goat and sukuma. Goat is very delicious, but very difficult to eat because of all the fat and little bones. Then we went over to the Canteen, which is a little courtyard area where people drink and dance. I wasn’t in the mood for a Tusker (the famous Kenyan beer), but finally relented and had a pineapple fanta when about five guys in a row commented on how I had nothing to drink. A kind man pulled out seats for Lia and I to sit in, and a friendly older gentleman named Kibuti came to chat with us. I really enjoyed his company before he became drunk; he downed about a liter of straight vodka - yuck! Before that he was telling me how we are all the same, regardless of skin color, and that Kenyans love visitors. He talked a tiny bit of Swahili with me, and explained that I speak much too properly for Kenya. My teacher is from Tanzania, where Swahili is a lot less broken than it is here. Once the vodka started to settle in, Kibuti became a broken record, insisting I must drink alcohol and repeating several times that he is the only plumber around. That might be good to know if we had any pipes. When Kibuti got up to use the choo, a guy named John sat down and began to talk to me. He is a Kikuyu from Nakuru, and he spoke very fluent English. He introduced me to his roommate Philip, and a friend in a bright yellow shirt named Solomon, whom they all call King Solomon. After a while, a big and wonderfully boisterous woman made Senny made Lia and I get up and dance, insisting we looked bored, even though dancing was the last thing either of us wanted to do. She showed us how to swing our hips, something that Meghan Spork knows is about impossible where I am concerned. But after we started, no one would let us sit down, possibly because we were two of six girls in a sea of about forty men. Dancing here is very different from dancing in America; the guy and girl stand about a foot apart and just kind of swing their hips and go from foot to foot, or some such strangeness. I liked dancing with Olanik best, because he jumped around from one foot to another, a move my stereotypically white self could actually manage. Meg has this great picture on her camera where Lia is looking at me with a plea for help because Kibuti had started to dance with her closely, and I am just looking at her with the most hilarious look of “I have no idea what to do!” on my face.

The best part was when the Maasai draped a shuka (the red cloak traditionally worn by them) over Meg, and placed red beads around her shoulders, so that minus the long blonde hair she looked like a real Maasai Mama. They called her “Nimeshapua,” which in Maasai means “she who brings happiness to others”. She looked beautiful. And it was a riot because the DJ played hyena whoops and giggles in between songs for her, truly an honor as the Maasai are not usually fond of hyenas; they seem to find it very amusing that anyone would come here to study them.

As the night wore on, a big ranger in a green suit became hopelessly drunk, and moved in a constant forwardly directed can-can, swinging his arms forward and backward in alternation with his legs. Joe, it reminded me of when we played “Perpetual Motion” on our violins; he just never stopped moving! I sat for a bit and met a Maasai named Patrick, who was very inquisitive about the outside world, asking me many questions about America. It was a pleasure to talk with him. He showed me pictures of his wife and two children on his phone, and promised to friend me on “the Facebook.”

When Segurian started to knock his head against Lia’s and mine in turn, telling us repeatedly not to fear him and trying to get us to dance with him, Dave came over and pulled him away. We left after that, because things were just getting too sloppy. But I was glad to have experienced a real Kenyan dance party; it actually turned out to be quite fun.

We returned to camp at 1:30, exhausted. We only stayed out so late because the rain gauge was already over 6 mm, the limit for going out on obs lest the cars should get stuck on the crazily muddy roads.

20:48, Saturday, 25 June, 2011

It is definitely not a good idea to go without writing for nearly three days out here, because so much is always happening! This is true in any field with animals, because they have variable day-to-day live just like humans. But with an extraordinary abundance of animals (A.K.A. Heaven), this is true to the tenth degree.

Thursday morning, we rolled out of bed to the sound of my obnoxious alarm to go to North Territory, where we found everyone playing. Two more little black cubs were present! They were in a den a little off to the side of the main den. We aren’t sure which female they belong to at the moment; Handyman (the poor female at first mistaken for a male) was grooming them, but it is possible that she is only their aunt. Regardless, the female Hooker was also present, and she pointed at an approaching hyena a little after we arrived (pointing is a dominance behavior that looks kind of like what a German shorthair would do in the face of a pheasant, but with a bristled tail instead of a lifted front leg). Then, this little teeny tiny black cub went up beside her, and imitated her point, which is a sign of coalition. It was so adorable! Later on the same morning, Nancy Drew (one of the older cubs) stood over one of the little black cubs and pasted on it; pasting is assumedly a territory marking behavior, although I don’t think anyone has done overt analysis. When hyenas paste, they lift their tails as though they are going to poop, but instead they secrete “paste” from their anal glands onto whatever they’re marking. So in essence, Drew was marking this little cub as hers, or something of that nature. It was such an odd behavior, but she did it so gently to each of Zoey’s two littler cubs in turn, and in a very weird way it was kind of sweet.

Driving around looking for more hyenas, as well as lions for me, we drove next the Mara River and saw a spoonbill in the same area that we had seen a Goliath heron the day before, by the very proper British sign commanding us, “Do not alight from you car,” right below the rapids where there is often a hippo bringing its great open mouth out of the water. We also saw another black rhino, close enough to get good pictures this time! That rhino drew a lot of safari vehicles; they always alert us to something super rare or cool, but never to hyenas, thanks to old incriminating folklore.

As might be gathered from previous entries, our conversations during observation hours can get quite interesting. That particular morning, Dave asked us what kind of antelope horns we’d have if we could choose. Surprisingly, there is actually a lot of thought that must go into one’s answer. If you pick the more extravagant horns, such as those belonging to an impala or waterbuck, you would look pretty awesome (or just plain insane), but you would have more trouble wielding them about, and your neck would have to be thicker. This is why I chose the more modest, but still very cool-looking male tommy horns. Lia thought she would like waterbuck horns, I think Dave chose either impala after much waffling, and Zach thought he would like hartebeest horns.

I worked on lion charts during the afternoon, after writing my previous entry. I have come up with names for the five lions we saw in Happy Zebra the morning before: the two adult females are Midler and Regina Spektor, the two young females Gin Blossom (who chased around the antelope) and Daisy May, and the young male Hoobastank. While working on their charts, I had a hankering to listen to the Circle of Life, which turned into a session of sing-along Disney music with Dave.

That evening we drove around South Territory, and what a beautiful drive yet again! The tracks went along the tops of great hills, looking over a city of termite mounds and red oat grass, solitary trees and thickets of bushes. Antelope were everywhere at the higher elevations; there was a group of at least thirty elands, more than I have ever seen. One of them cracked me up because it had about twenty oxpeckers sitting in a line across its sagging back; oddly none of the others had even a single bird. Something must have been particularly attractive about that eland.

The hyenas at the den introduced me to another of their social behaviors Thursday night. When one female aggressed upon a lower-ranking female walk-arriving at the den, that female “scapegoated” on her nearby cub Pala, comparable to our taking anger out on someone who has nothing to do with why we are angry. After appeasing to the aggressor, Pala’s mom immediately turned and T3-lunged at her (a T3-lunge being a highly aggressive move sometimes involving biting, if I remember correctly). Poor

Pala crouched away, and I wonder if she was confused, or if cubs have learned the basis of scapegoating by her age. Either way, she returned to her mother, who had sacked out on her side so her scapegoat could nurse. As Pala nursed, Squire (another cub), came to get his milken supper. However, he kept running nervously back to the den with his ears back because two zebras wrestling nearby were frightening him. The zebras were rearing up and knocking their heads against each others’ necks, biting and chasing. I think they were mostly play-fighting, because there were no vocalizations, and the surrounding zebras seemed uninterested. It was great to watch.

The civet was back that night. Its green eyes glowed from a rock straight out from the toilet hole. We stared at each other for a long time, and when it made to leave I attempted to soothe it by telling it I wouldn’t hurt it, and that I liked it very much. I’m no Dr. Doolittle, but it stopped and stayed nonetheless.

The sunrise yesterday was phenomenal, even though it was hazy again. The sun appeared to be three colors: the top part yellow, the middle reddish, and the bottom orange. It looked almost striped where one color faded into another. Meg, Zach, and I drove out to Happy Zebra, where Sawtooth and her two cubs awaited us. After a bit, Sawtooth got up and walked deliberately in one direction across the track. We followed her, only to find about ten hyenas in a spaced-out semicircle, heads poking up from the tall grass in a single direction. And then we saw Midler, Regina Spektor, Ginny, Daisy May, and Hoobastank lying in the grass, chewing on the final remains of a kill. I don’t mean to doubt my study subjects, but I’m pretty sure that kill was stolen from the surrounding hyenas. One hyena had managed to salvage a hoofed leg, and was running around giggling and bristle-tailed from another hyena. After we IDed all of the hyenas present (one which was a superbly colored female with light brown spots on her body, but dark brown ones on her back legs), we drove back over to the lions so that I could double-check the younger ones’ sexes. While we were circling them, Daisy May stared at the back of our vehicle, very interested. She followed it with her head at first, and then got up and followed us in circles around the other lions, her eyes always fixed on the back of our vehicle. Finally, we realized that she was staring at the hyena decal on the back side. It was so funny, because she just kept following it with big eyes and openmouthed, reminding me of my cat Albus when I entice him with a string. Gin Blossom joined in the game a little bit. Eventually, one of the older females playfully pounced on Daisy May as she kept going around and around, and after a bit they all decided it was time to leave. As they were walking away, a hyena snuck in to steal back some remains they had left behind. Either Middler or Regina (I’m not yet adept at telling them apart) turned around and tore back at the hyena, which dropped the scrap and ran in the other direction. Satisfied, the majestically huge female returned to join her family and walk away. I hope the hyenas ended up getting some of their meal back. On a different note, I am quickly growing fond of Ginny and Daisy May, and I hope that coming across them becomes a regular thing.

I must throw in a quick comment about a tommy on the side of the road back to camp. It was stotting along like Tigger in antelope form, jumping ridiculously along as though it had springs attached to its feet, rendering it incapable of normal locomotion. Such a joyous sight!

In camp we exchanged stories; Lia had some crocodile teeth from a skull a hyena had been chewing on! I wonder if hyenas could kill a crocodile; I certainly wouldn’t doubt it. I then spent the greater portion of that afternoon sucked in by A Primate’s Memoir. I recommend that anyone interested in Africa read it. It is a very frank, entertaining, subtly emotional and thought-provoking book surrounding a research zoologist’s experience in the Masai Mara. It even mentions Laurence of the Hyenas, a fellow that Kay worked with when she first began her hyena project twenty-three years ago.

Night obs were fairly quite at first; we didn’t see any hyenas until we arrived at South Den. I was driving. At the den I witnessed the submissive ears back head-bob behavior of one hyena after greeting with another. Animal communication is so interesting! The zebras were sparring again, and the sunset (with the sun still appearing to be three colors) enthralling, it visibly moving beneath a mountain. But that sun was deceptive, as a massive storm was brewing on the other end of the endless expanse of sky. All of the antelope and zebra moved in together towards one spot on the savanna, and the clouds gathered dark and deep. Then came the most magnificent storm I have ever seen, not surprising as the clouds have been culminating over the past few days. It was as though all the might in the universe had gathered overhead; I have NEVER seen such lightning. Not only was it coming down in great jagged forks on the horizons, but it split from the center of the sky and spread around us like a dome, leaving traces of the patterns even after the initial waves of brilliant light revealed the untouched areas of sky. I didn’t know the earth could be lit up by streaks of lightning; flashes are apparently not required. Thunder cracked, and as I drove back I could hardly see (Zach offered to drive, but I decided to just finish up) because of the rain. The camp driveway was an absolute river, and Lia, Dave and Meg had experienced hail on their side of the savanna. The storm left shortly after we returned to camp, almost as quickly as it had come, and after an hour stars were attempting glimpse the earth.

Meg left today after being here for a year; her research assistantship was finished, and she will be going to graduate school at Georgetown University (Hoya Saxa!). We were all very sad to see her go; it’s funny how you can get attached to someone so quickly when living with them over even just a week or so. The feeling is akin to freshman year of college, when you feel like you have known the people on your floor for your whole life within just a few days of meeting them. But her going-away party was last night at the lodge, and it was quite the experience. I met a lot of very intriguing people, and I think writing about them will require me to be more awake than I currently am. But before I go to bed, I will mention that there were elephants right at the base of the camp driveway as we drove out on our way to the party. Halfway up the adjacent hill, we had to stop and put on the parking brake until they had moved out of the way, slipping backwards a little in the process. Dave was in the car behind us, and he said that it felt like he was in a Jurassic Park movie trying to figure out what he should do if the elephants decided to charge us. But nope, they just went about their eating, and eventually we squeezed through.

P.S. Love and miss you all.

Thursday, 23 June, 2011

When we left camp for night obs in South Territory after I last wrote, we came upon a couple of stunningly dark male giraffes. One of them had so many spots that it looked like a puzzle whose pieces are in place, but not yet attached. Very cool. And the way they stood on the top of the mountain escarpment was very classic.

Driving along, I noticed that the zebras were very peppy. They ran around like Willie and Scandy when they are feeling like young horses again. Two of them intently groomed one another’s shoulders, others chased each other in what appeared to be wily bliss. Dave expressed an urge to slap a zebra on the butt as we drove past.

At the South den, there were several males present. The coolest thing was when two of them did what is called a social sniff, followed by a parallel walk. These are two behaviors that reinforce social bonds. A social sniff consists of two individuals sniffing the ground at the same spot, nose-to-nose, while being bristle-tailed, and turning slightly in a circle like wheel spokes. This is followed by a bouncy sort of walk-trot, in which the hyenas move in unison while slightly staggered, one a little in front of the other. It was extremely interesting to witness.

The impala were chasing one another ridiculously across the plains again, their white tails all fanned out. A tommy all out sprinted to prevent a female from leaving the boundaries of his harem. Three ostriches walking in the dusk curiously appeared much bigger as silhouettes than they do otherwise, like some ancient raptor-bird in the night. On the drive back towards camp, Dave asked us what we hadn’t seen on our trip yet that we wanted to. I mentioned that I would like to see a leopard. About a kilometer further up the road (kilometer...the scientist in me is coming through), no joke, we came upon a leopard slinking across the road. It looked very young, and we are pretty sure it’s the one we have been hearing in camp at night. I quickly told Dave that I would also like to see a snake, but no dice this time. However, this sparked a very entertaining conversation concerning snakes. A while back, Dave had a black mamba try to get into his tent while attempting to escape mongooses. Mambas, being very aggressive, are not something to be dealt lightly with. I guess that he called Jorgio over, and the Maasai are very good at “disposing” of snakes without getting bitten. I think they beat them, which is extraordinarily sad to imagine as I’m sure that snake was just as terrified as Dave, but he said it was either he or the snake, so I cannot fault anyone. But ANYWAY, we started talking about what we would want to happen if we were to get bit by a mamba. Don’t worry Mom, we have fly-in health insurance, and the anti-venom helicopter only takes 20 minutes to get here from Nairobi, whereas the neurotoxic venom will not kill you for 30-45 minutes. But theoretically, we decided we would want to have our favorite camp foods made right away just in case. Dave said he would want chapati, Lia crepes, me scrambled eggs with miboga, and Zac just wants Siracha sauce :). So now we have a plan of action, perhaps a good thing since Dave’s girlfriend Julia saw a black mamba slither away in East Camp by the choo yesterday morning!

When we got back to camp, I headed up the path towards the bathroom, but something’s green eyes were glowing in the light of my headlamp right around the edge of the tarp. I stood there for like ten minutes trying to figure out what it was; it moved around every so often, looking at me, but eventually disappeared, so I continued. Then, on the way back down, I saw it again off to the side in the woods. It was a civet!!! I watched it for a long time, and it just sat there on a low branch watching me, its ringed tail announcing it was in fact a civet and not a genet. I called Lia over, and somehow it wasn’t afraid when she tried to get a picture in the dark. Eventually it slinked off, and we returned to the dinner table.

It was Mexican night African style; Moses (who came to take Filiman’s spot when he left on break; he is also extraordinarily nice) made his rendition of burritos, not quite understanding the concept of salsa, but it was still very delicious. Somehow Meg and Dave got into an argument about whether Siracha or Kenyan Kachumbari sauce was spicier, and so she, he, and Zac put a dab of each of them and tabasco sauce on their plates and tested them against one another. The conclusion was that Siracha only seemed spicier because it lingered longer. Zac thought tabasco sauce was spiciest, but the other two shot him down. Well, I’m glad that’s settled.

Yesterday morning I went to Happy Zebra with Zac; a giraffe was right at the bottom of the camp driveway as we exited. The hyenas at the Alamo Den remained out of sight for a long time, with only a lark singing happily atop a dead branch sticking up from the center of the den mounds, as the red sun rose in the again cloudy sky. Eventually the female Sawtooth arrived, and her two cubs emerged to nurse. However, Sawtooth was very uncomfortable, and kept looking off to the northeast, eventually walking away and leaving the cubs to crawl back into the safety of the den. The surrounding topi, impala, hartebeest, and tommies were also on edge, the topi snorting, and everyone staring in one direction. We decided to go investigate. It was a juvenile/subadult lion, probably around the age of two, failing miserably at hunting. If your prey is aware of your presence when you’re a cat, it’s trouble. Cats are fast, but only for very short bursts of time, and rely quite heavily on the element of surprise. I got some good pictures of her, and she lead us back to four more lions! Woohoo! There were two large females, an adolescent male that barely had a mane started, and another adolescent female. They licked one another affectionately, the returning female juvenile nuzzling up to her assumed mother. The adults just stared at us (I absolutely cannot get over lion eyes), used to the constant paparazzi surrounding their famed lion lives, but the juveniles were much more fun to have around. The young male walked right over to within about ten meters of us, staring back at me as I snapped pictures for my project. The other female seemed curious as well, but wasn’t quite as bold. Eventually, the original female went off to hunt again, disappearing beneath the grass. After a long time, the others got up and went to join her, their shoulders a perfect motion above the grass. They didn’t end up making a kill though, much less trying very hard, barring the ambitious young female. Instead, they sniffed a tree, a couple of them getting up on their hind legs so that I thought they were going to attempt a climb, before settling down beneath a nearby bush. Naptime had arrived: twenty-one hour naptime. We left after about a full hour of photographing and watching them. I am very excited to have a look at those pictures this afternoon.

Along the road, I watched a baby tommy run and stot repeatedly in the absence of a predator. An antelope stots by spryly jumping into the air, advertising its fitness to surrounding predators, saying, “Don’t try to catch me, because it will be much too difficult.” This baby seemed to be practicing for the mere joy of it. A secretary bird also crossed the road in front of us, its disproportionately long legs an odd sight to behold.

Back at camp, I experienced hand-washing my clothes in the little basin outside of our tent. It felt delightfully like a Laura Ingalls-Wilder book. Then I worked on my lions. I am now positive that the first five males I saw were all different. I named the final one Seger; I now have Mumford, Jack Johnson, Coltrane, Seger, and Bieber. However, would you believe that the female seen with Mumford was the same one seen with Seger a day later? Yep, Weepie is not messing around. She is the one with the missing eye; after her ear damage and whisker patterns proved identical, I noticed that in the first string of pictures she kept her right eye firmly closed, explaining why I had not realized it as missing. Thus my named females are Shakira and Weepie, and today I am going to add a whole ‘nother slew of them.

Our mongooses have not been here for the past two days, and I am starting to miss them very much. However, I did witness two of our bats (who are always around) hanging right next to each other in the lab tent, face to face as though hugging, one grooming the other while simultaneously keeping an eye on me, its enormous ears flicking outwards. And while preparing to leave at five yesterday evening, I spotted three lovely little dik-diks right next to my tent out the window, timidly eating leaves from the bushes.

We found yet two more lionesses on night obs, very near the bottom of our camp area. One was absolutely huge! Among the night’s inevitable adventures, we drove past a hole in the ground, and all of a sudden Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! A mother warthog and her three overgrown piglets shot up out of it one after the other. It was very comical. Our crazy secretary bird was hopping aimlessly about the plain and up into trees again. I daresay he should have a name if we see him again. There was a male ostrich so ready to mate that its skin was flushed a bright pinkish red, as though it either had very high blood pressure or was tremendously embarrassed. Lia began her project last night as well, setting out the bottom of a jerry can to test boldness variation in the cubs at north. They were so funny to watch, and the best part was when Sauer (the adult female) decided she wanted in on the game, and came over to investigate. She sniffed at the can, then suddenly picked it up and tried to run away with it, until she got to the end of the rope and it flung out of her mouth and back towards the car, scattering all of the cubs. It was rather hilarious.

After dinner, which included the delicious green spinach-like sukuma, I walked back to our tent. About five minutes after I had finished washing my face, a lion roared not 40 meters away, followed by a chorus of hyena giggles and a hippo grunt. I flung everything around in an attempt to find my glasses, and then sat pasted against the window with my flashlight against the net so I could see out. They were outlandishly close, and Jorgio and Moses had to walk Lia back to our tent to make sure nothing happened, telling us that the animals were right down by the shower. Lia and I couldn’t control our excitement; no way were we going out of that tent, but we remained by the window, determined to catch some of the action with our eyes. It took awhile for us to realize that maybe the animals were skirting the light, so we turned off our lights and waited before shining out again. Finally, we got a glimpse of two green eyes, either belonging to a lion or hyena, about 20-30 meters from the tent. Wow! Eventually the action settled down, the hyenas ceased giggling in fear and whooping for reinforcements, the intermittent, heart-trembling roar of the lion could no longer be heard. The silly hippo kept vocalizing though- they always do.

This morning, Zac told us he had discovered the source of the commotion. Having driven over to the lodge to transcribe notes last night, he came upon a leopard with an impala kill right at the base of camp. Lions are notorious for stealing food, and they also tend to terrorize any hyenas that are in their way. Lord knows the hippo probably got mixed up in everything, and the poor leopard certainly went home hungry. Life is not unfair only in the human world.

15:30, Tuesday, 21 June, 2011

After the snake, I settled into my hammock beneath the African trees for a nap. It is a wondrous view staring up at the trees, with tents as the only visible human shelter; I don’t think tents can quite be said to mar a landscape.

When I woke up, I noticed how cramped my legs were feeling. We cannot run in West Camp unless we do ridiculous circles within its general perimeter on the uneven ground. The road is not an option unless you desire being trampled; that will be one nice thing when we have to switch to East, I suppose. However, there is a little trampoline stashed in the lab tent that one of the previous research assistants left here. I took it out behind the tent, and got creative, jogging in place, jumping patterns, jumping in general, jumping jacks, doing leg lifts, butt kicks etc. etc., punching the air to the beat of my music in confined exercise-style bliss, orange-tailed flycatchers and robin chats flying overhead. I felt like I could take on a cape buffalo. Afterwards, the cold shower water wasn’t quite as unpleasant.

Elephants were everywhere again during night obs! Sweet little (relative term here) babies were all over the place. One elephant was up at the top of a modest mountain! It seemed like it should be overcome by gravity, but it was obviously balancing just fine. Another group of elephants was very into the tourist vehicles watching them. All four of them, including a mother, a teeny-weeny (as far as elephants go) baby, and two subadultish-looking individuals were raising their trunks towards the vehicle and trumpeting. That baby about killed me with its cute imitations of the older elephants. Among the other zillion groups of them we saw one baby nursing, and came upon some really old lone looking males, two of which had only half of their master tusk leftover (elephants are tusked like we are handed, and the master tusk is the one they use the most). The base of the trunk of one of the males appeared to have a circumference equal to that of a fairly good-sized log. Enormous. I think I might like to be an elephant in my next life. As far as life on the savanna goes, I think theirs is the most insouciant, because their food is everywhere and other animals have to be pretty dang hungry before attempting to take an elephant down.

Near a patch of these elephants, Dave spotted a hyena skull, and skillfully saddled up next to it, scooping it up while we kept an eye on the closest mother and her little one. I love skulls; ever since taking mammalogy this spring, I find them to be fascinating beyond all measure. The teeth of this skull were fairly worn down, indicating it belonged to an old hyena. The sagittal crest on a hyena skull is unreal; that is a ridge on the top of the skull where the temporalis muscle attaches, which powers the jaw.

Then we came upon Bieber, the young male lion with a good-sized but still developing blonde mane. I named him Bieber because he is young, and because I thought that my cousin Ella Signs might appreciate knowing there is a lion here named after her favorite music artist. Bieber is gorgeous, not that I have ever met a lion I wouldn’t describe as thus. He groomed and yawned a lot, rubbing his paws over his eyes in an attempt to dissuade the flies, and looked around from his mound with an intense sun-like experience. Upon reexamining my five male lion photos for the project, I was surprised to realize that they are all different individuals. Joe, there is a lion out there named Coltrane now! :) I haven’t decided between McJagger and Harry Chapin for the other one. I suppose John Denver is also on the roster; he looks as though he could be a John Denver. Or perhaps Usher; Dave suggested that one, and even though I haven’t really listened to them much, Usher seems like a good lion name. As for my possibly new female, she will be either Janis or Joplin, because she looks tough with her missing eye, and I can picture her singing “Take another little piece of my heart out Baby! Oh, oh, break it! Break another little piece of my hea-a-a-art!” And my Grandma Janice is unfailingly tough, so it fits in that way too.

Topi, impala, thomson’s gazelles, and cape buffalo were scattered across Breakfast Plain yesterday evening too (named so because tourists take their “hippo breakfast” on the riverbank nearby). We even saw two grant’s gazelles; they look very much like tommys, but slightly larger and with white that extends up the backs of their legs and over their butts. We were taught to tell them apart during BEAM by remembering that “Grants have pants.” I would also like to tell Sam Aliah (or maybe it was Reagan?) that I fully appreciate the comment that tommy tails could power a wind farm; I guess I didn’t notice two years ago how truly constantly they are always moving! Oh, and I forgot to mention that I actually witnessed a topi in the act of rubbing its horns in the mud the other day. All you can do is chuckle. The cape buffalos look grumpy as ever; Lia and I thought it rather funny when Dave suggested it is because they are “just so preoccupied with being massive.” As for the impala, three or four males were chasing one another around, making a ton of racket. A poor tommy almost got caught in the middle of them, and barely managed not to get plowed over. I understand that the groups of gracile, beautiful females that make up their harems must be highly desirable, but really? Oh, and I can’t forget the mother warthog that ran across our path, followed closely by her three overgrown teenage piglets, every one of their tails pointing characteristically at the sky.

Two females hyenas were nursing their cubs at the den: Zoey and Sauer. Zoey was nursing her two tiny black cubs; they squitter like little kittens!!! I almost squittered watching them, because such cuteness necessitates vocalization lest one should burst. It is a naturally elicited reaction, I swear. Zoey groomed one of the little cubs so hard at one point that it tumbled over backwards, and squealed its way back to nurse. Zoey is a good mama. So is Sauer, who was very nervous with us around her cub, even though it is much bigger than Zoey’s. She was very on edge, perhaps for some other unknown reason. I think she and Zoey are my favorite adult females, maybe along with AWP. Sauer is just beautiful; her neck is extraordinarily thick, and she is so big! I wouldn’t mess with her. Following the peaceful den scene, some light whoops in the distance drew several of the surrounding hyenas in the direction of the lodge. We didn’t know where they were going, and couldn’t follow them. The mysteries of animal behavior are what make it so fun to study.

We have been deprived of our African sunsets lately, which are made up of just the type of sinking blazing ball you would imagine; but here, you can literally see it moving as it glides down the sky behind the mountains. It’s quite amazing. Two nights ago there was one of these brilliant suns in the western sky, while forks of lightning extended to the ground towards the east. But the last two nights the sun has been completely obscured, replaced yesterday by flashing lightning that lit up the entire plain. I can’t complain; it was just as cool, especially with the added thunder. AND we saw a whitetailed mongoose in our headlights! They sort of resemble a skunk with their fanning white tail, and are rather large for being mongooses. I didn’t even know they existed before last night!

We all split for bed pretty fast after dinner when it’s raining out, because it is harder to hear one another, and the cold and wet just makes you want to curl up under those warm Maasai blankets. The rain had stopped by the time Lia and I fell asleep, which is when we heard our leopard. Lia and Dave saw it on their drive this morning, and we could hear it from obs at North Den! The cubs were chasing each other around playing this morning. It was hilarious watching them grab one another by the ears and neck, wrestling all around and playing chase. Even Zoey’s two little black cubs were joining in the play, tumbling over her back, and becoming the center of attention of the older cubs. They all seemed so fascinated by these little versions of themselves, and it was so great to watch. In addition, one of the adult females actually lifted her leg in greeting for a cub-so sweet for her to be so appeasing to such a little one. We checked out pancake den (don’t ask; I have no idea where it got its name) before leaving. Tinsel had two tiny cubs still in her natal den, even smaller than Zoey’s cubs! I almost died. They kept running out to their mother, then back to the den, following the other’s lead with every move. They played tug of war with sticks that they detached from tiny bushes, dragging them along behind them. I also loved it when they would stick their ickle-d noses in the air and sniff the great wide world that was soon to be their own.

Although Zac had procured the numbers of a couple of safari guides for me to ask about the usual location of lions, we couldn’t find any even given their advice. I hope to have more luck tonight! Either way, the drive was phenomenal; we didn’t see a whole lot of wildlife, but we did stop momentarily by the hippo pool. A curious hippo swam its way over to look at me from the bottom of the bank I was standing on; I was surprised, because most hippos appear to ignore human observers. I liked this hippo; I think it represents the ethologists of the animal world, akin to those of us who are so fascinated with other species. It disappeared in a great swirl beneath the water as I left.

It has been a relaxing day at camp, and now is almost time to go out for night obs. I am sitting amidst the big rocks of the fireplace, looking out at the savanna and snaking river behind the trees, writing. I really love waking up to the sound of that river rushing in the distance. Earlier today I worked on my lions until the computer ran out of power, and entered hyena poop sample data into a spreadsheet. It was rather hilarious reading over the various descriptions of poop, from green and gooey to hard, hairy and crusty. Gross? Yes. Zac and Meg also showed us how to clean the solar panels after lunch, as well as check the battery juice. We can now officially take part in the chores of camp life!

20:42, Monday, 20 June, 2011

Okay, so we saw the crazy giraffe run. Then we continued into a new type of savanna landscape; it was almost akin to a swamp minus the mush, if that makes any sense at all. There were dead bushes all over, and waterbuck everywhere, with a rising mountain stretch (the type that looks almost like a tree-covered grassy plateau) to my right. I think I had an under appreciation of waterbuck on the study abroad trip. The males have fantastic horns, straight up except for bowing out slightly and coming back towards one another at the top with no branches, black with beautifully ringed ridges. I think that you would think they are great, Dad, because they sort of resemble big fuzzy white tailed deer except for the whole antler bit. The females are especially deer-like. The funny thing is that waterbuck don’t look like they belong on the savanna, but in a much colder climate. I suppose they must be more comfortable than most animals on the chilly nights though.

Further along we came upon a male hyena eating at some bones. I can’t remember what his name was, but he was skittish, which is not the case for most all of the hyenas we watch. At one point, while walking away, he turned towards us with a vertebrae in his mouth. We all cracked up because he looked so silly with his ears perked up, examining us, with the triangular shape of the vertebrae where his nose should be. Just like a curious dog that has heard something interesting and stopped mid-chew, with its ears raised.

We ended our spectacular drive at the North Den, where many cubs were out. Anchorwatt (sp) came up to the car and looked straight up at me again. I think I am falling in love with hyenas; it truly can’t be helped after you spend a bit of time with them. Two of the most ADORABLE little 4-week or so old cubs popped out of the den for a couple of minutes before disappearing back down. They look sort of like kittens with big ears, pointy noses, and a little puppy tail.

All of a sudden, several of the cubs perked up, and began running in one direction. Oh the woes of being a primate; we couldn’t see what was going on in the dark, so we turned on our headlights and followed. The adult female RBC had a carcass: specifically, the head of a warthog. Following was perhaps the most fantastic display of animal behavior I have ever witnessed. RBC ran around giggling and squealing shrilly, running in circles through the scattered, interested cubs. She would stop periodically and eat about two bites before running in a frantic circle again. We had to follow her with our headlights, which became increasingly challenging with cubs everywhere; I was very worried we might hit one. Then we noticed the source of RBC’s discomfort: the female adult named Digs wanted in on the pork roast. The really interesting thing is that RBC is supposed to be the alpha female of the north, but Meg was explaining to me that she didn’t think so; if she were alpha, she would not have to be screaming and running from Digs, because she could just make her back off. After about forty-five minutes of her nonstop running and our doing donuts on the savanna so that Zac could keep recording what was going on into his tape recorder, she finally stopped to eat for more that a few seconds, and her obnoxiously loud giggling ceased for a bit. Digs had backed off. RBC’s cub Typhoon was the only one allowed to share in the meal, and even she was aggressed at periodically by her mother, at which times she would squeal but soon return to eating. If other cubs got near, RBC would tear after them and they would dive into the den. Eventually, with half of the warthog head devoured (she crunched through teeth and everything...most powerful jaw of the animal kingdom), she began tearing around hysterically again. We followed, but it began to rain quite heavily, and we had to return to camp since things were getting slippery. Would you believe that warthogs are stupid enough to share dens with hyenas sometimes? I wonder if the previous owner of the apparently delicious head had been fooled into thinking such a den was a good place to raise a family. Dave says he doesn’t think it so outlandish, because warthogs can be pretty fierce. I don’t know, but either way warthogs have a special place in my heart, because they can always make me laugh.

This morning I went to Happy Zebra and North with Dave. I drove the entire way; Dave refuses to believe that I haven’t driven a stick shift before. I love watching the savanna come to life as the sun rises and the birds wake up; it reminds me of accompanying my Dad hunting in the woods in the morning, and sitting in a tree stand watching as a new day dawns on nature, away from the empty clocks of the human world. The sun was amazing this morning. It was a hazy red ball when it found a gap in the cloud-cover. Nah! Savenya! Mo-mo-chee, chee-Baba! (Please note that I do not really know Zulu, and this rendition of Circle of Life is certainly incorrect, but the way I always interpreted it as a kid.)

We saw some elands on the way to the den!!! Elands are really big, light gray, shy antelope, with huge turkey-waddle type lumps on their chest that bounce when they walk; I can’t fathom why such a hindering apparatus would have evolved. Regardless, I am kind of fond of these guys. The males have backward sloping, relatively straight horns, and they just look cool. I also like that they are shy. It’s endearing.

No hyenas were present at Happy Zebra Den. Instead, strangely, there were two bat-eared foxes on top of it. I can’t get over bat-eared foxes. Absolutely irresistible.

We drove on some very remote tracks for a long time, and gosh, did we ever come up on a GORGEOUS rolling stretch of savanna. It was like a hidden grassland valley, with African-style mountains standing intermittently about. Heaven. I would have stopped and lived in one of those trees in a Rafiki existence if I could have. The weird thing is that there didn’t appear to be many animals, although the tall grass can make it difficult to tell. We did see some elephants on one of the slopes, and there were cape buffalo every so often, with one big herd including calves. I came upon a group of about three females and a calf. Suddenly there were guinea fowl (awesome looking, plush birds with a blue head and neat-looking stripes, that according to Julia Smith look like they would be very tasty) right in front of the car, with a gazillion little chicks following them in a single file line that I didn’t want to hit. I stalled while trying to avoid them. Dave told me I mustn’t worry about guinea fowl with buffalo so close, although he had never known them to charge a car. Granted, we did have the smaller research vehicle, but their manners proved to be perfect as I laboriously restarted the car; the next half a mile or so was a constant struggle not to hit any guinea fowl, who ran in front of me until one finally had the brilliant idea of going off to the side, and the others eventually followed suit.

What a striking thing it was when we came upon an august male lion, sitting in the grass of a slightly lighter color, causing the topi and zebra on the opposite side to go berserk. I seriously think he was enjoying the effect he had on them while just sitting there. Eventually he sauntered across the road in front of us and carelessly walked through them as they nervously snorted and ran, keeping a wide berth. He looked at us briefly, but we were of no more interest than the surrounding ungulates. We got excellent pictures of him; another lion for me to identify!!! Providing he is not Mumford or Jack Johnson, he is going to be named Coltrane, in honor of my brother Joe, who came up with the name while we were talking on the phone tonight :).

Still further along the newly mown grass track, we came upon a mating pair of lions. They were walking right on the road, single file with the female in front, and as I was leaning out my window snapping continuous pictures of them as they came nearer and nearer, I realized I had better pull my camera out of the way. They walked RIGHT BY THE WINDOW. Wow. I could have reached out and touched them. They just ignored me as I snapped more pictures from my safely retreated position. I would never have dreamed I could be so close to a lion. We turned the car around to make sure I got good pictures on both sides of their faces for whisker patterns, at which time we witnessed a copulation. It lasted literally like five seconds, and there was a lot of teeth baring and snarling. Then it was suddenly over, and peace restored. What an incredible experience those lions handed me. I am fairly sure the male is another new one, but I haven’t quite ruled out Jack Johnson due to his lazy refusal to lift his head yesterday. The female looks very similar to Weepie, but she is missing a right eye :(. It could still be Weepie though, because A) in the pictures from yesterday her right eye is closed or turned so I cannot see it, and B) I just read in Estes’ Guide to the Behavior of African Mammals that lion brothers will even sometimes share matings with a single female.

On our way towards north, I spotted something in the track. It was a lone guinea fowl. It stood up, and about seven little brown-striped chicks (about half the size of the previous ones) fell out of her. It was so funny, and more than a little cute.

After passing through Dr. Seuss Ville, we found a few hyenas while driving through North. I had a horrible IDing morning, taking about five to ten complete minutes examining photos, and still guessing the wrong individual at the end. I got two right and two wrong. While I was working on AWP, an adult female, there was a male giraffe about thirty meters from the car, staring at us curiously. I yelled a gentle “Jambo!” at it as we passed it on the way back to the road. Giraffes. So wordless.

It was a really nice day to be in camp. Slight amazing aside...Lia and I just heard a LEOPARD!!! It sounds like a saw cutting wood when it breathes hard. We are going to look for tracks around camp tomorrow!...but yeah, we could see elephants right on the savanna below from the lab tent table today! And unmistakable trill also announced that our mongooses were back, and I sat on the path and fed them for a long time (sorry Mom, you probably didn’t know that some of those granola bars were going to be eaten by mongooses). I love it when they are chewing with their tiny mouths opening wide in what appears to be the satisfaction they were searching for (however, I got reprimanded for chewing like that as a kid). How funny when they chase each other around as well! A mother bat could also be seen feeding her overgrown baby beneath the overarching canvas. I am growing more and more fond of bats.

I had just settled into my hammock back by our tent, intent on reading a bit of A Primate’s Memoir before settling into a nap, when Lia came running over to tell me of a snake. I have never hopped up from an intended nap so quickly! It was a little green guy that blended in almost perfectly with the grass. We were pretty sure it wasn’t poisonous, and took some good pictures. How exciting! The next step will be a venomous one, hopefully at an appreciable distance.

Time to sleep. I am getting worse at staying awake to finish things. Such full and tremendous days wear a body out.