21:37, Wednesday, 20 June, 2012

I was very disappointed to discover that I hadn’t woken up to the elephants in camp the other morning as we gathered sleepy-eyed at the table for pre-obs tea/coffee.  Tyler couldn’t sleep because of them, and Eli said he was afraid they would cause a tree to fall on his tent they were so close (I really may have to move to his tent when he leaves).  But of course, whereas I used to wake up to the tiniest of fruit bat squeaks, I now sleep through elephants crashing through camp. 

Sunday morning I witnessed the most incredible display of animal behavior I think I’ve ever seen; Benson and I drove upon a clan war at the border between the Talek West and Talek East hyenas.  There had been some sort of kill that had stimulated the chaos, possibly made by the lions who left shortly after we arrived.  Twenty of our West hyenas were present, only five Easties – poor guys were terribly outnumbered.  But they gathered about 20 meters from the border at each side, and formed into a circled huddle bristle-tail and sniffing each another as though soldiers encouraging their fellow fighters.  Then, when all were ready, they would rush at the Talek East hyenas, who displayed similar behavior on their side.  Then they would rush back, regroup in a couple of little huddles again, and all at once charge back to the frontlines.  This was repeated several times, until finally our twenty Westies rushed across the border and chased the Easties well back onto their land.  The Easties retreated, and I assume if they had white flags at their disposal they would have been waving them frantically in the air.  Luckily there were no casualties; the Easties regrouped as our hyenas walked back in a proud, solemn but tired line, nearly single file although with odd uneven gaps.  I momentarily thought the five Talek East hyenas were going to try and salvage their reputation with surprise since they were still bristle-tailed and unsettled, but their general must have realized how silly that would be.  They whooped for reinforcements, but the six extra Talek East hyenas arrived too late.  The war was over.  Poor Puma must have been quite distraught throughout.  He fought on the side of Talek West, loyal to his family, yet I’m sure he was a bit confused as to what he should do given we saw him testing dispersal in East not so long ago.

Met two new males this morning, Perth and Lamu.  Perth has no tail!  I shan’t have trouble with that identification!  We have also discovered a new male in the territory, and since we have seen him three times, once interacting with an adult female (Artemis in this case), we will be naming him soon.  All of our immigrant males are named after cities.  I quite like the idea of a “Hong Kong” (Hong for short), “Petoskey,” “Sedona,” or “Tokyo.”  I’m sure this will occupy a dinner conversation soon.

Even more exciting, we finally found Amazon’s cub!!!  We knew she was hiding some offspring since we got milk from her during a darting.  We followed her to Big Bush Den and waited.  Like a new mother, she was very nervous to have us around, and plumb sacked out in the den hole once.  It must not have made a very good nursing position, however, because shortly she was back up on the side of the hole, and a few minutes after she lay down one tiny little black cub came meandering out of the hole.  Its eyebrows aren’t even white, yet its ears aren’t pinned back, making it an estimated three weeks old.  So precious.  Amazon groomed it roughly and it nursed.  Silly old Oakland came wandering about;  I have no idea how he got it in his head that Amazon would let him near her newborn cub.  Once within ten meters of her, she suddenly popped up and aggressively chased him away.  Boy, did he ever start!

I will have to write about Arietti tomorrow.  Hers is a very exciting story indeed, and it’s killing me not to write on it now, but I have to go to sleep – getting up at 4:40 to head out to Prozac Territory in the morning.  I am not looking forward to that alarm ringing.  And Caitlin and Joe and Grandma Signs, if you happen to be reading this, I am dying to call and talk to you guys, but my phone has been dead and a few other shinnanigans have prevented me from doing so (e.g. getting stuck with no phone in the dark out in the Mara and arriving back too late, a story to be recounted soon).  I am doing my best, and miss you all very much!  (Our internet is terrible as well.  I have taken to standing on the fallen log outside my tent so I can reach up and put my laptop there - must look ridiculous - since sometimes it gets better service that way.  But a lot of the time I end up wanting to scream and it’s all I can do to keep from tossing my computer into some abyss where I never have to see that AWFUL spinning color wheel ever again).