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.