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.