15:53, Friday, 18 May, 2012

Yesterday morning it was too wet to go on obs, as we had agreed the night before, so we were supposed to get a good sleep-in.  Supposed to.  The bats didn’t wake me up this time.  Rather, some sort of bird with the most beautiful repertoire of sounds burst into song right above my head at five in the morning.  I couldn’t fall back asleep, but who could be angry with such a happy creature?  And pretty soon all of Kenya’s birds awoke and erupted into a medley so beautiful it was as though they all had written parts.  Therefore, although I lay in bed for two hours attempting to defeat the last remnants of my jet lag, I was up at seven taking a walk down to the river.  Many graceful little dik-diks darted shyly away from the camp paths into the brush as I made my way there.

I owe those birds.  I was totally shocked to see a hyena crossing the river to the side opposite camp about 50 meters up from my favorite jutting rock.  It was a beautifully dark-spotted subadult, or so it appeared from where I was.  It stuttered on two clumps of grass in the middle before all-out plunging in and swimming.  They are remarkably good swimmers!  Especially considering this one had a considerable limp, as I was dismayed to discover as it climbed the bank on the opposite side.  I’m very happy no crocodiles were around!  I was extremely excited to tell the others – they couldn’t awake early enough.  Kay said in all her years here she has never seen a hyena cross the river! 

The agama lizards also ran rampant on the rocks that morning.  There were many more than last year; perhaps a good amount survived from the nest I saw the one laying last summer.  Jackson showed me where a tortoise had laid her eggs eight days prior.  You would never know a nest was under there; it looked just like the surrounding ground the way she had it covered.  It must be very sturdily covered, because a track showed that even a hippo’s weight had failed to cave it in!  Jackson also said he saw FOUR crocodiles at that spot the other day.  Kay had a very large one by her tent as well, which makes me think I will be waiting a while for the river to go down before I decide to go running on the other side.  Gah, that would be terrifying to happen upon one at eye level!  I am determined to see one from a higher point regardless.  There were none to my knowledge around this part of the river last summer.

I learned many more things yesterday.  Beneath the three bats that hung in the lab tent stretching their wings, yawning, and hanging from one foot while scratching their bodies like dogs with the other, I was given all of the clan lists, instruction manuals, directions around Nairobi for our trips there, etc. etc.  I have a lot of reading to do!  I also cleaned the solar panels with Michelle, set up tracking on the hilux with Eli, and assisted both of them in moving new supplies into the storage tent, whose whereabouts I now feel confident of.  Benson reminded me how to record the weather.

It rained again yesterday afternoon, but luckily it stopped soon enough that we were able to fish-tail it out of the driveway to the den and see some of our hyenas.  We suspect that the Talek West hyenas are expanding their territory, because  we saw Drake, the adult female, running in the territory of the Talek East hyenas.  About three of the cubs, including Rebman, earned tics toward graduation from the den because we saw them far enough away from it to qualify (I will have to check again as to what the distance is).  Three tics and a cub is considered graduated.

I met Galapagos, a small and cute hyena whose spots remind me of a Dalmatian.  I also learned more spot patterns, although I find it extraordinarily hard to ID in the dark, and I felt a bit like I was going backwards in my ability.  I got to see the adult females Helios and Hendrix again!  Helios’s leaf pattern is as helpful as ever in identifying her. Pentanol was there, another subadult who was quite small last I saw her (him?).  At one point, all of the cubs were below us fighting over some food on the ground, and one of them emitted this deep growly rumble at another that I had never heard before.  It was almost like a little angry elephant!

Kelsey and the bushbabies were at dinner.  Two adult bushbabies, terrorizing the genets as usual, came begging.  Kay gave one of them chicken, and it hopped off in seemingly joyous bounds to eat it in the brush.  Who knew bushbabies like meat?

This morning I alluded the bird above my head, but only because we had to get up at 4:30 so we could head out on a darting expedition at 5.  My first time experiencing darting!  I was very excited.  The bird just barely started singing at about 4:45 when I was washing my face.  I think he must have a favorite perch on a branch above my bed.  Looks like I’ve got more than fruit bats to get used to. 

More on the darting later – my time is up!  Five minutes over.  An improvement, however!