11:07, Wednesday, 6 July, 2011

Grandpa, you had better start worrying. Maybe I should have gotten that tattoo after all, because there were loads of baboons in camp yesterday! At first I thought the elephants were crashing in, because baboons sure do crack a lot of sticks when they climb up to forage. One of the males was just hugenormous! I had so much fun following the troop around with my binoculars. When one of the smaller adult males noticed me watching him, he tried to make me run by barking and start-jumping as though he were going to charge. I knew he wouldn’t, but I quickly realized that my returned jumps might be seen as a challenge, and bent over with my butt facing him in a submissive posture before moving off a little bit. Who knows if it did any good, but next thing I knew he was chasing off some females and juveniles, who screamed as though being murdered. I really should have recorded those sounds; they were mad! At last I found a friendly female who didn’t mind me watching her, and calmly sat eating berries while I tried to take pictures. I am very fond of her indeed.

However, if the baboons return today, I must resist the urge to watch them for extended periods. I did not get enough work done on my lion project yesterday. I am making a book with photos and identification tips so they can be tracked after I leave. A couple more names have been added to the roster; a very beautiful young female is named Ingrid, the one with the cancerous growth Denver (John Denver was my favorite growing up), and the one hanging out with Shakira I am calling Joplin.

Returning to the hyenas, we observed lots of whooping yesterday. Whooping is probably the most common spotted hyena vocalization. When hyenas whoop, they lower their heads to the ground, and an adult’s whoop can be heard from up to two kilometers away. Usually whoops draw in other hyenas, and there has been some research showing that hyenas can identify one another based on voice-super cool. Cubs are adorable when they whoop; yesterday Pala and who I think was Squire continually whooped back and forth at the den. A little further along, Clovis (the dominant female of South) whooped in five groveling males. It was odd because the six hyenas were very close to Murdoch’s pride; lions and hyenas are rarely so close without some sort of overt competition. Two of the arriving males greeted by lifting leg for one another, and one of them whooped the entire time it was sniffing the other’s phallus. It was so weird; even Kay didn’t quite know what to make of it when we told her. Another interesting thing about whoops: in the hyena world it is the females who undergo an awkward voice change during puberty. Their whoops are deeper than males’. I suppose there has to be SOME downside to being a female hyena. Cracking voices and giving birth through a phallus. We just can’t win.

Last night Sauer came running onto the North den scene with a zebra leg, giggling up a storm when the cub Typhoon (higher ranking by birth) tried to steal a bite. Typh’s mother wasn’t around to back her up, and therefore she didn’t get much from the adult female. Digs came in with a huge slice of skin, and there was an intense scene in which Rotten came up and was bit-shaken by her. Bite-shakes are a very aggressive maneuver! That and all of the tail-bristling and giggling portrayed acommon truth amongst carnivores: food is a BIG deal. Eventually Digs carried off the large scrap of skin, and although the pattern on the skin looked wicked sweet (as Lia would say) while being ripped apart with sickening crunches, it also seemed sinful that something so beautiful was being torn to shreds. At any rate, it was gone within the span of five minutes.

Meanwhile, there was a huge pile of eight cubs at the den. I am going to have so many pictures of cub piles, it’s ridiculous. Tiny Tarrow was holding his own at play-romping, gripping tight to a much bigger cub’s head with his teeth in a way that looked very painful and prevented the other’s mouth from reaching him. At one point Mari tried to groom her back, and in an attempt to reach it with her mouth, rolled over and fell into the den; I still laugh when I think about it. Three of the others played tug-of-war with a stick. Irresistible, they are. I should stop trying to describe their behavior, because it just doesn’t do the cuteness justice.

I got my first cheetah to identify yesterday!!! We saw a female two nights ago, but it was too dark to take a picture. Then last night we found one posing perfectly atop a rock, perhaps the same female, looking for some prey. Cheetahs have got to be one of my favorite animals. They seem so harmless, and are just gorgeously shaped beyond anything an earthly mind could create.

Crocodiles have been everywhere in the river lately! They are thrilling; if there’s an animal that gives me the willies, it’s the crocodile. We saw a group of five a couple days ago, some fully out of the water, others in the characteristic pose, only eyes and snout and maybe back showing. Then yesterday evening there was just a GIGANTIC one sunning on a rock, probably sixteen feet in length. I’m pretty sure hippos, lions, and humans are the only things that give such a creature pause, and that pause probably doesn’t last too long.

For the fourth of July we had a big dinner of stir-fry and chicken with Chris, Amanda, and Shimmy. Kay told more of her fantastic stories, and Chris and Amanda have to be some of the coolest and most entertaining people I have ever met. I don’t remember exactly what we all talked about, but I laughed myself into tears more than once. I do recall going around the table, each making our best hippo impressions; I think this in itself speaks for the amazing company I was in.

And finally, my favorite quote of the day that reminded me just how awesome our situation is, said in complete seriousness: “I am going to take Moses up to the lodge to get some phone credit, so you two are in charge if baboons raid the kitchen tent.”