20:36, Tuesday, 3 July, 2012

I have no idea how to organize everything I have to write about.  Guess I’m just going to have to plunge in!

I’ll start by saying happy birthday to my Mom on June 30^th.  I love you more than I could ever say, and I wouldn’t trade being your daughter for anything in the world.  You’re the best. 

Also, happiest of birthdays to Tee on July 1^st.

And let’s commence further with the subjects of the hour: our hyenas.  A day or two after I last wrote, we saw the two little black 6-weekish old cubs come out of the bushes about 40 meters away from the nearest den hole, and behind them was...Yogurt!  Our suspicions all but confirmed!  She hung back very nervously as the two little heart-grabbers bounded curiously about the car, poking her head around bushes in a game of peek-a-boo in which the peek-a-booer was terrified.  I think this is as close as we’re going to get to affirming her parenthood – there is no way Yogurt is going to be comfortable enough to nurse around us!  We’d have to hide all night in the bushes to witness that one.  But we’ll just have to wait and see.  In the meantime, whoever came up with the lineage of “noble gases” for her family line had better discover a couple new elements that fit the column, because we are all but out of the 8 availables. 

Speaking of Yogurt’s noble gases, Argon was very amusing in her curiosity over a kori bustard some nights ago (Time is so weird out here; since the days of the week don’t really matter I quickly lose track of when things happen.  Everything blends so that the rising and setting of the sun alone determines our rhythm.  I quite like it.).  She watched it from behind as though unsure of what to do about it; looked as though she thought it a higher-ranking conspecific for a moment.  Once she figured out it wasn’t a hyena, much less a mammal, she approached to within about 5 meters from behind as though wanting to chase it and see what would happen.  She stopped and stared for a prolonged minute, ears perked forward and nose stuck out, then must have thought the better of it and left it to its business.  Probably good; holding the title of heaviest flying bird with the countenance of a prehistoric dinosaur has to count for some sort of ground-holding ability.

And while on the topic of interspecies interactions, I still can’t get over how well jackals and hyenas seem to get along.  There are repeated incidents where a hyena will approach within about a meter of a jackal, the two will look at each other as though old friends having a passing conversation, and then part ways in a casual manner.  Most recently this happened with Turquoise, then Oakland.  Even when hyenas aggress on jackals, it doesn’t seem menacing, certainly no more menacing than aggressing on another hyena.  It’s like the two species have a mutual agreement of tolerance and friendship.

Came upon the most amazing buffalo kill one morning.  Hyenas had run off with some scraps; of course Helios was hogging most of the food, exercising her queenship.  Further along, five jackals to the side throwing a jackal-party, at least that’s what it looked like, all chilling in a small area.  Lions were of course upon the main carcass, which looked as though it could feed the carnivores of the entire ecosystem until next Christmas.  There were two adult male lions – one was absolutely enormous, mouth stained heavily in blood, hugely fat so that it looked painful for him to walk.  He came right toward our car as we attempted to get ID photos (very hard when there are 25 tour vehicles on the nearby road whose pictures you don’t want to ruin), walking at us with those big yellow eyes that will always strike the flamingly wild chord within me.  He stopped about ten meters from our car, watching, before at last lumbering off, looking as though his weight should break the physical laws bodies are built around by cracking and disabling his paw bones.  Since I am going to be keeping track of lions again for Dave, who is currently in the other camp, I tossed out a request for names.  He will be Beethoven at Julie’s excellent suggestion, and the other close by Mozart.  Two lionesses were also on the kill; I think one may have been Nora, but we couldn’t get close enough to tell for sure.  Possible-Nora was resting her head on the leg of the dead buffalo, nearly asleep, a morbid use of something killed as a pillow.  A subadult male was also present, absorbed in snacking.

Returning to the kill the following morning, only the skull was left, and the hyenas were servicing the earth with their mighty jaws, cleaning up what everyone else had long turned their noses up at.  Radon, Gelato, Pene, Gaza, and Oakland were all there, as well as about 5 jackals.  Radon didn’t much like sharing with the jackals, and when I transcribed the scene I had him t2 lunging a jackal at least 20 times – very repetitive (hooray for copy and paste!).  Vultures patiently waited their turn on the outskirts.  All of a sudden this alien female we have been seeing shows up on the scene with a subadult following (likely her cub), and the strangest interactions take place!  She is allowed within 10 meters of the carcass before finally Gaza and Oakland get up and bristle-tail coalition at her, at which time she backs off with her ears back; yet she didn’t back off far and they lay down as though nothing happened.  Clearly she isn’t part of the clan, as she is below the males.  Yet somehow she is being accepted.  When the female approached the carcass again, Gaza stood and made to aggress at her, at which point she actually snapped at him!  He must have felt reproached and lost his will to bully, slunking off to lay again by the carcass while this female (Alien #394) walked up and got a scrap.  Such tolerance is unheard of!  The subadult was certainly nervous as can be during all of this, but was also permitted to feed on a scrap.  Further, there was a new male about that this nervous sub carpal crawled and squealed to, groveling on the ground.  Is it possible he is another new male (we’ve had at least three as of late), and therefore above these two aliens who we originally thought he was associated with?  The whole thing was very strange.  We speculated this female might be from Talek East, and since the Talek East and Talek West clans split in the not-so-distant past, she might be related to the West hyenas and allowed a green card.  It’s an exciting mystery that only further observation can solve.

Saw Blue for the first time since I arrived!  I was beginning to worry about her.  There are too many hyenas that seem to be approaching missing status lately!  I don’t like it.  Michelle is worried too, so I know it’s abnormal.  Blue was in an area of tall grass that apparently we need to pay more attention to.  Expensive hilarity in the same tall grass in the form of a target trial: we chased Morpheus around like a bunch of crazed lunatics, trying to catch her in the right position so Julie could deploy Target.  (If I haven’t already mentioned, Julie’s pilot study involves putting out a fake hyena – appropriately named Target - and measuring how hyenas of different social status and personality react to it.)  The hyenas have to be alone and walking down the road for a proper trial, and no tourists can be around.  Morpheus was on the road, off, on, off – finally consistently on, only to have a tour car drive up.  Chase in circles again, Ian in the pick-up trunk with target ready to go  – off on off – FINALLY we get it positioned and swerve to the side to videotape.

10:13, Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Had to stop at a very awkward moment last night because something sizeable was directly outside my tent, contacting the rain tarp so that I was too nervous to unzip my window and look out.  I thought I’d better stop typing and turn off the light in case it got scared or overly curious. Usually I have some idea of what is outside my tent, but this time I was stumped by its movements.  Bushbuck maybe?  (Later in the night I lay awake to the sound of a sawing leopard.  I doubt a leopard would get that close, but the thought is thrilling!)

Back to Morpheus’ target trial.  Morpheus approached closer than any hyena has; once she figured out it was a fraud, she began to nip investigatively at Target’s nose and butt.  Nothing harmful, just light mouthings.  Then out of nowhere Pan arrives.  Morpheus must be significantly frightened of her higher-ranking younger sister, because she immediately turned around and walked in the opposite direction, disappearing down the road as Pan approached Target.  After a while, she started to do the same mouthing thing that Morpheus had been doing.  Next it turned to light biting; we became slightly worried about the expensive target, but it didn’t look like any real damage was being done so we decided not to interrupt the data collection.  But then Pan suddenly knocked Target to the ground and began to drag her into the tall grass!  I quickly turned the car on and we leapt to her rescue, Pan refusing to let go until the car was literally about two feet from her, having detached the head and nearly making off with it as poor Target lay decapitated.  As it was, after reassembling Target, Pan’s hyena jaws had “only” completely bitten her nose off (I’m sure she ate it, being a spotted hyena), and significant chunks were taken from her butt (also doubtlessly ingested).  While terrified of Kay’s reaction, we also couldn’t stop laughing.  The whole thing had happened so fast, and so unexpectedly; man down on the field!  Target trials with high rankers = dangerous, note to selves.  Kay was not too upset, and said that the spots Pan attacked are points that an attacking aggressor often goes for.  This was not a random attack!  Preemptive strike of the first degree!  At any rate, poor Charlie (the coming RA) has to drag a brand new target along through the airport, along with the 50 pound bag I didn’t have room for, my new binos, and some other camp supplies.  And in the meantime, Target is humiliated, having lost the sense that most directed her in the world. 

The same night as Target’s makeover, Michelle excitedly called us.  A miracle occurred!  There was a roadkilled tommy on Sunrise Plain that no one had yet touched.  She and Tyler were tempted to go find Echo and Foxtrot and lead them to it, but rightly decided it unethical.  Then, out of nowhere, Foxtrot starts coming down the road!!!  He eventually saw it, and with Echo following shortly behind, they began to eat on it!  There are no words to describe how rare that nothing was yet eating that dead tommy, that two cubs should have it all to themselves.  And to make a good story better (although somewhat sad for the tommy), Foxtrot pulled a fully developed fetus out of the dead female!  He walked off to feed on that, leaving Echo with the female.  Two meals for the price of one!  The male Kyoto showed up, and Michelle and Tyler thought that for sure he would chase them off, but he just ate alongside them!!!  No words.  I don’t pretend to know how the universe works, but there are times I recognize God’s essence, and realize that all the nights laying awake trying to make sense of the horror and doubt and cruel aspects of nature should a good God exist have nothing against these small times when I know.

Saw Garbanzo and Chickpea nursing from Magenta the other night!  Discoveries in field science are just the best.  Time for them to lose their cub names and be dubbed Togepi and Oddish.  Magenta’s lineage is “Pokemon,” something I know nothing about having been the only kid who never really got into them.  But I know enough to know that there are some great names to be had!  Welcome to the master hyena list, Togepi and Oddish.

Learned something endearing about Gaza the other day.  Apparently he is always the one hanging out with new males, the welcoming one who comes forward as the first friend.  I also never realized how absolutely gorgeous Lamu is.  His spots make long sweeping loops across his side, on over his shoulder with only one dark spot nearly perfectly in the middle of the blank space it roofs.  Spotted hyena beauty is not only underappreciated, but rarely recognized.  Wish everyone could see them up close and come to realize that here uniquely strange coexists with a genre of beauty nowhere else seen in the animal kingdom.

Gelato and her younger brother Ziti are hanging out with the immigrant males like mad lately.  Females can get overdramatic sometimes, Gelato.  I understand.

Felt like Indiana Jones looking for Samburu’s collar yesterday with Benson and Tyler.  Lord, it was fun!  We had to drive from one side of the river to the other, tracking the lost collar to somewhere along the steep banks dropping off into a crocodilian river.  We crawled through the thorny bushes and held tight to the branches sticking out over the banks as we traversed the edges like rock climbers.  Once the dirt beneath my feet slipped and ran into the river below with movie-like patters as I hung from a branch I was ever-grateful for.  All I could do was smile as I regained my foothold.  Climbing along the banks of a river in Africa on a treasure hunt – I used to have to imagine things so great when I would play in the yard as a kid!  Crouching near the bottom at last with Benson and Tyler, we realized that the only place the collar could be, according to the tracking, was in the river, the area too deep to go fishing for it.  And you couldn’t pay any of us to go swimming in a river full of crocodiles!  Sorry collar.  Samburu must have been eaten by a crocodile :( ; I can’t imagine her trying to cross the river in such a place, and having seen a hyena swim very well with a hanging foot I have trouble believing she drowned, although she could have been swept downriver.  Thorns in hair and scratches through our shirts, we ascended carefully, happy as clams from the fun of it all upon pulling ourselves to the flat grass on top. 

Pole, Samburu.  Tutakukumbuka (we will miss you).

Happy 4^th of July, by the way!  Michelle made us all laugh the other day.  She was here for Madaraka Day on June 1^st, which celebrates Kenya’s independence from Britain.  Now we are going to celebrate the 4^th today.  “It’s so awkward having everyone celebrate independence from your country as you sit mute in their midst.”  It’s okay, Michelle. It’s not your fault England was an imperial arrogant land-stealing oppressor throughout history ;).  Unfortunately, we’ve been carrying on their lost legacy over the past decade.

12:02, Wednesday, July 4, 2012

My life is complete.  I saw my venomous snake.

Sitting in my tent transcribing on my bed, and I look up to find a dik-dik staring back at me.  I love how I see everything out that window; it’s like sitting in a deer blind, things not knowing you’re there so you can just watch them in their natural state.  However, this particular dik-dik was very alert in my direction.  I thought it must have spotted me, and looked back down at my computer screen in hopes of calming it.  Absorbed back in transcribing, then five minutes later I remember to look up and see if it’s still there.  My hand flew to my mouth as I saw a gray-black snake about a meter and a half long slithering along, fitting the description of a young black mamba.  It was not a meter from me where I sat on my bed, the snake that some dub the most venomous land snake, an animal that could kill me in twenty minutes should it so choose.  It was fantastic and terrifying and thrillingly exquisite all at once, everything I hoped seeing a snake out here would be, and I was perfectly safe in my tent with front row seats.  It slithered there for about five minutes, exploring up the log where I often sit, curling backwards back down, its tongue moving in and out.  Soon it glided away as quietly as it had come, and my hand finally left my mouth.  I was extremely jumpy for the next few days, but it was so worth it.  I was sure to tell the others, and we’ve all been stepping a bit more lightly since.  Tyler caught sight of a very black snake tail the other, and said it didn’t taper like this mamba’s did.  Seems like we have some new friends in camp; haven’t seen the mongooses around in a while, and I wonder if that’s why the snakes have come.  Either way, I remind myself that they are just as nervous around us as we are them, and have every right as we do to exist in peace.  People have lived here with snakes for ages, and the doctor we talked to when I was on BEAM had never treated a snake bite in all his years here. 

Out that same tent window two days later I had a huge baboon troop come very close, chill as could be while foraging in the trees.  A young one rode jockey on its mother’s back, and I gasped as I saw a baby hanging from another mother’s belly that couldn’t have been more than a couple days old, so black and pink and hanging by only its arms so its legs curled up as it swayed there, tiny and sweet.  I called the mother Lena – she must be a very good mother, because in her alertness she was the only one who suspected my presence, repeatedly looking up and staring at me as I held as still as I could.  I like her.

Saw a stunning shiny turquoisy-green lizard (such sheen!) sunning on a rock while driving out of camp for obs, one of a species I’ve never seen.  A robin chat (Kay’s favorite bird; they have orange bellies and black heads with one white stripe, always seemingly cheerful and bold, bobbing around like the robins back home) came within about six inches of me the other day.  It cocked its head and acted like it might decide to jump onto my lap as I sat washing my feet.  Discovered hornbills sing like opera ladies – I thought I was hearing one of the guys’ radios coming from their tent (vibrato lalalalala); turns out it was a hornbill!  Delightful.  Adult dung beetles rolling impala poop into the most perfect ball you’ve ever seen by the recovery bush, just like on the Discovery Channel.  I’ve never been so excited over something involving poop in my life.  Tyler came up with the name Eugene for the hippo we saw by the rock outcrop – really great hippo name!  And I’ve named an agama lizard that hangs around there Jorge; he is recognizable because his tail is about half the normal length, likely bitten by another male during a mating struggle.

I think Kelsey recognizes my voice!  She turned a bit the other day when she heard it.  She also didn’t hesitate to climb onto my lap the other afternoon when I set food there.  Tyler said, “You’re just the animal whisperer, aren’t you?”  I have never felt so complimented in my entire life.  Two nights ago at dinner Kelsey sat under my chair almost the entire meal, feeling safe from the bullying bushbabies as I kept shooing them away.  It was hard work keeping the peace; I held food out to the bushbabies so they would hop happily back into the bushes away from her, but it was difficult to extend my arm far enough so that they didn’t come too close to Kelsey.  Michelle said I sounded like a crazy person, gently scolding the bushbabies, “Be nice, there you go, now go on!”  Once I dropped Karma’s (the little bushbaby’s new name) food on the ground, and she grappled at my finger, looking up at me with her big eyes in confusion, ridiculous ears all perked forward.  So cuuuuuuuuute!  I would die to be able to cuddle him/her.  Karma has on a whole become quite bold.  On nights Kelsey is not around and I allow her close for her morsel, she will hop off with it and then return before I notice, until I look down to find her halfway up my chair, staring at me expectantly.  A long way from the bushbaby who huffed nervously like an Olympic sprinter and approached in jerky starts and stops. <3  I also caught her crawling awkwardly about after a toad the other night, so curious when it would hop, jumping back with her ears all out and the perpetually surprised look on her face.

We have been so busy lately!  We are trying to chart the East hyenas after the clan war, thinking we might study them again.  It was fun naming them; I named the most handsome male “Jose” after my brother Joe (Sorry Joe, “Joe” by itself was apparently used a while back).  Another female is named Caitlin, after my very best friend.  We also have a lot of work to do getting things around and ready to identify lions and cheetahs for Dave.  Not to mention transcriptions, keeping camp running, 6 hours of obs a day, running to get gas, going to Maina what seems like every other day for a new car problem, getting groceries, trying to re-chart Fig Tree and Prozac (the rain has kept us away), practicing for the darting that I am going to try tomorrow (we haven’t darted since Kay left), organizing salaries, updating hyena lists and boards, and then trying to find time to exercise, shower, and socialize.  I love every minute of it though!   At least my ID’s are finally coming together, although I am in a stage where my first instinct is always right, and then I spend 20 minutes trying to confirm who I already know to be the correct individual.  I am so scared of recording false data!  Michelle said she went through a similar phase of wasting time doubting herself, and that it will pass soon.  Hope so!  And my new binos should help.

Benson has been back for a few days now!  I had missed him so much – he is so wonderful.  I actually get the ball during soccer some again (he passes to me the most) – although I did find a guy who passed to me the other day that wasn’t Joseph, Benson, Jackson, or Wilson!  Miraculous.  I was joking around some days back and touched his head as though he were a child (that is how you say hello to children around he); boy did he ever turn around and chase me!  Hehe, know how to yank his chord now – always a good thing to know for good fun :P.  His wife and son are going to visit in either August or September, and I am SO EXCITED.  I love the people here so much.  Jackson hid behind a bush when I was coming up the path in the dark the other day, and about gave me a heart attack (seriously!) jumping out at me; I thought he was a hyena or leopard or something!  This time it was my turn to chase, and I wacked him with my headlamp strap as he giggled like a little kid.