9:08, Tuesday, 5 July, 2011

Lions and elephants have been hanging consistently around camp! The night I last wrote, the lions I was hearing came so close that we could hear their huffy post-roar breathing. Kay woke up to a bed-shaking roar right next to her head at one o’clock in the morning, and she said that her heart hasn’t beat so fast since she last ran a foot race, which was “a LOOOONG time ago!” Last night when we got back from obs, I was periodically stuck in my tent because one was so nearby that I didn’t dare even unzip the windows to look out. I think they must be the mating pairs that we have been seeing on the Breakfast Plain. While Moses and Philiman (who is back because Jorgio left to go on break-we bade him a sad farewell yesterday morning) were cooking chicken for dinner, the lions were bellowing directly below the kitchen tent, probably desiring a drumstick. As for the elephants, they have been rumbling right beneath camp, so close that their bass voices sound like thunder. I just love it. Kay told us that elephants have at least 240 vocalizations, if I remember right, not including the subsonic ones that they absorb through their feet. I wish I could speak elephant; I think their sounds are my favorite.

We saw a male lion in the same spot twice yesterday, but he was walking in a rock field, so we couldn’t get close enough for me to ID him. Incomplete data points kill me inside, but I need to get used to settling for imperfection if I am going to be a field researcher. Then today Zach (who has returned from Nairobi) and I saw six lions; it was Murdoch and King’s pride. Intriguingly, Murdoch became interested in the hyena decal on the side of our car just like Daisy May. Except this time we were in the Suzuki, which is probably half the size of the Hilux, and Murdoch is one of the biggest lions I have ever seen. Therefore, it was slightly unnerving when he started to follow us, his eyes in the stalking stare, his mouth open as that of a cat following a string with its eyes. I rolled up my window just in case he decided to pounce, and Zach drove off a little ways. He gave up pretty easily. Then, one of the female lions in the pride pooped!!! Dave has been waiting for lion poop to test stress hormones for ages. We got out and collected it once the lions had moved off about a hundred meters, keeping an eye on them. One looked back and saw me, but didn’t care and kept walking. That poop almost asphyxiated me on the drive back; I don’t know that I have ever smelled anything so fowl. The hilux drove up while we were scraping it for DNA, and I joyously ran over with my poop-covered gloves and had Dave guess what was on my hands. He was very excited. Oh, the things zoologists get excited over.

The hyenas are doing well; Kay, Zach, and I saw SKITTLES again last night! We followed her along the road, and I was hoping she would lead us to wherever she was headed the other night, but eventually she went off the road and just stood there, until after a while she looked in our direction and promptly sacked out so we could no longer see her. Again, the mystery of Skittles goes unsolved.

Many cubs have been receiving tick marks for graduation lately; if they are seen three times more than two hundred meters from the den, then they are said to have officially graduated. Panda and Typhoon both received one yesterday morning. I think it’s really great because Typh, her older subadult sister Shark, and their mother RBC hang out together all the time. I have a family photo of them.

And I shall have to continue later. I am very nearly out of power. Mom and Dad, I will call soon- probably tomorrow!