21:16, Sunday, June 19, 2011

SO MANY cool things happened today! We’ll see how many of them I can recount without absolutely exhausting myself.

This morning I went to North Territory with Dave because there tend to be more lions around there; Lia went with Zac to Happy Zebra. We found three hyenas: Lego, Tinsel, and Leprechaun. I correctly IDed Tinsel, but the other two were very challenging because they were sacked out, and I needed Dave’s help. After finding Tinsel, we noticed that there were a bunch of safari vehicles up the main track. Sure enough, there was a courting pair of lions, sleeping next to one another on the road. Apparently they copulate about 100 times over the course of two days. No wonder they were tired! While we watched, the male got up and tried to induce another mating, but the female wouldn’t have it and bared her teeth at him. He wisely backed off. I got good pictures of both of them. The rest of the morning was filled with elephants, and so many little ones! I love watching elephants eat. Their trunks go down to get grass and up into their mouths, down to the grass and up to their mouths, in an amusing rhythm. It is especially cute when really little ones do it. I think I saw our charger! Her tusks are very distinctive, nearly crossing in the front. She is so huge it is unreal. I tried to come up with a name for her, but nothing is magnificent enough.

However, I did come up with some names for the lion pair. After stressing for about an hour going between photos, I finally came out sure that Shakira and the female I photographed today are in fact different individuals. The right sides of their faces have almost the exact same vibrissae pattern, and their left is similar enough to be confusing. Luckily I found a little black spot on the new female’s ear that Shakira doesn’t have, and so began mapping out her pattern on a new chart. I named her Weepie, because a song by the Weepies came into my head while I was staring at her and wondering who to name her after. I named the male Mumford; he is super handsome, with a mane that is a good mix of black and blonde, extending to cover his chest and back over his shoulders. He has several scars on his face, and his eyes reminded me of why I was so struck by lion eyes last time I came out here. They are indescribable, amber with a fiery depth and pupils with the brazen look of one who knows he reigns, undisputed, over the savanna. At first look, we had thought Mumford was Kali from African Cats, but then realized his mane wasn’t dark enough.

After a nap in which I was out cold, I returned to the lab tent to draw up Mumford’s whisker chart, but the most distractingly adorable dwarf mongooses slowed my work. Dave and Zac were feeding them our peanut butter bread, and of course I had to sit cross-legged on the ground near the mongooses and join in. They are wonderful little creatures, and they make distinctive, inquisitive-sounding trills. There were about five total. I had so much fun with them, and when Lia arrived we coaxed them quite close.

Dave agreed to go with me out looking for lions this afternoon, outside of normal obs time. Lia came along too; she and I each drove for half of the time. There is a ton of room for improvement concerning how jerkily I drove the stick shift this time, but no one died and we got where we needed to go, so I would call it another success, especially since I spotted a lion. He was lying lazily on his back beneath a tree, and refused to look up for an appreciable amount of time. Typical male lion. However, I was being a very annoying researcher trying to take pictures during his nap, so I can’t complain. I am going to have to work with a very shoddy picture of his left cheek. At least I got enough to tell that he wasn’t Mumford. He is going to be called Jack Johnson, because he seems very chill and clearly knows how to live the good life.

No more lions were sighted on our little outing, but there were giraffes! A whole gorgeous herd of about ten. Three of them were juveniles, although not extremely small ones. One was laying down a bit in the distance, and its neck looked very silly poking up from the grass. We also came upon some ground hornbills, among which I was very surprised to see some with yellow faces! I had only ever seen ones with red faces. Also, don’t be fooled; ground hornbills look nothing like Zazu. They are big black birds with a turkey-like gate, a red (or yellow!) face, bloodhound eyes and a big black hornbill. I have no idea what Disney’s model was; surely it can’t have been these.

We barely had time to stretch out our legs before it was back into the vehicles for night obs. I rode with Meg and Zac in hopes of finding more lions, as they were headed to North. Along the drive, we didn’t find any hyenas for a good while, and we didn’t end up seeing any lions, but boy did we see a whole bunch of other African fauna. Were there ever a lot of animals out! First, we passed the finest looking bachelor group of impala I have ever seen. Their horns were huge, and so artistically twisted and placed. Surprisingly, none of them were sparring. Often times we see males grappling with one another. Further along there was a black rhino!!! There are only about thirty or forty of them in the entire park, and we have already seen two in less than a week. Next, there was a troop of baboons along the road, two of which had the most adorable, tiny little black babies you have ever seen. They were seated right next to each other holding their babies to themselves, as though discussing the joys, trials and tribulations of new motherhood. A pelican was standing in the Mara River, and whole hordes of elephants were out on a part of the savanna that is slightly wooded. I have never seen so many enormous creatures in one area. We passed at least fifty of them. As lightning began to flash in the gray sky enveloping the mountains behind the trees, we watched as something spooked a giraffe, and it all out sprinted parallel to us. I have never seen a giraffe sprint! Their slow motion earth-shaking run is what I had witnessed in the past, and I didn’t know they had a higher gear. Apparently that was a pace meant to cover ground in a timely but sustainable manner. This giraffe was booking it, and it looked so unearthly. I wonder what spooked it. After a bit it abruptly stopped and trotted around with a look on its face like a horse evading its owner who fancies a ride.

The rain is falling on my tent roof, making it so cozy that I don’t think I can stay awake any longer. I will have to finish tomorrow!