9:36, Friday, 24 August, 2012

Wow!  So busy lately as we compile transcriptions from the past three months while simultaneously adding new ones every day.  Once again, a stint during which I am not able to write much. 

I’ve been back in Talek since last Sunday.  My time in Serena couldn’t have been more lovely, yet it’s great to be back.  My last full day there was quiet as I proofread my notes to leave behind.  I looked out my tent window once to see a couple of eagles alighted in a tree above an alarm-calling dwarf mongoose.  Dwarf mongoose alarm calls are hard to describe on paper; compared to their normal trills, they are much lower-pitched than you would expect.  It’s sort of a perfectly even reeeeeeeee that stops abruptly.  The mongoose looks straight ahead during and after its calls, paradoxically appearing not at all alarmed, before reeeeeeeeeeing again, possibly turning its head nonchalantly to the side after this bout before starting yet another.  It’s really cute, that’s what it is.  The same dwarf mongoose trotted over to my tent after the eagles had gone, and  I was startled when it jumped out of my empty little yellow trashcan the next time I left my tent.

The evening light fell on the view from the lab tent my last evening.  The clouds and the sun combined in such a way that made it seem almost foggy, but a very light fog in which every drop was tinged with the sunlight that bathes the nostalgic dreams of an afternoon nap.  It was beautiful.

Julia came back Saturday night; it was excellent to see her!  After dinner she, Dave and I went over to hang out with Amanda and Chris (fondly known as the “majis” for their water research, if I haven’t already made that reference).  Chris made us peanut butter cookies in his new little camp oven whose use he has recently perfected.  Friends, fire, food in a wilderness just as wild as I ever could have hoped.

I bid goodbye to Jorji, Moses, and Dave the next afternoon.  Julia drove me to the “cell phone tree,” a landmark halfway between the two camps where Charlie would pick me up. (It’s a cell phone tower made to look like a tree, but for Lord knows what reason it is dressed up like a pine tree.  Because there are a lot of pine trees in Africa...).  We saw four cheetah cubs in the road on the way.  They were in the stage where their manes are in full bloom; I would guess a few months old, although I don’t know much about cheetahs.  Their mother left for a few minutes as we watched, causing them to chirrup with those big eyes and little freckled faces, at which time she came bounding back.  It was very sweet.  One of the cubs was an odd ball out.  While the others would be in a clump looking for their mother in one direction, this one smartly headed a short way toward where she had gone.  Then, when the others followed their mother in a straight line upon her return, it bumbled about in the back, about ten meters separated from the others.   I liked this cub; it walked to its own tune.  I hope the cheetah mother can take care of all four until they are adults; we could do with some more cheetahs!

Greeted everyone amply upon my return; it was great to see them all!  I also met the two Israelis who are visiting; one is going to do a post-doc for Kay, and the other was his advisor in graduate school.  Amyal (sp), the post-doc, is extremely kind.  He was a joy to have around.  As for Ellie (sp), his advisor: the best author could not write up a better book character.  He always had something to say; once we learned to listen, we found his constant advice actually very helpful.  He has a sense of humor like none I’ve ever encountered;  it’s subtle, but once you realize he is joking the hilarity becomes palpable and hard to withhold.  If we got it wrong, thinking he was joking when he wasn’t, he would say most seriously in his foreign accent, “I am not joking.”  So I learned to look for the light in his eyes when he jokes.  I thoroughly enjoyed meeting both visitors, and especially loved to hear them talk in Hebrew.  Both also had great stories of their past adventures that made me go wide-eyed.  Amyal has convinced Charlie and me we must climb Mt. Kenya; apparently there are rock hyraxes so habituated up there that they will jump in your hat, and the vegetation is like nothing you will ever see.  I also had Amyal and Ellie tell me about Israel, a place that only ever existed in the bible to me; I was especially interested in how they dealt with the constant unrest in their daily lives. The tumult apparently is not often felt in Tel Aviv, where they reside.  But the Gaza Strip is far from no one in such a small country, and Amyal says the conflict is creeping nearer.  Good thing for his family they will be moving to the US, but what about all the other families?

It is good for the health of my blog that I will be going to Nairobi soon, where I should have plenty of time to catch up on all of the wondrous happenings of daily life in the Mara!

21:23, Tuesday, 14 August, 2012

Sunday morning a big tractor/bulldozer came whipping down the road way faster than anybody should drive anything, let alone an enormo thing like that.  I quickly pulled to the side, and the driver waved vigorously at us as he passed.  Dave shook his head, “Oh, now that makes sense; it’s Segurian.”  It was Segurian!  The character from last summer.  By the looks of things, he hasn’t changed a bit.

Sunday night was wonderful, because it was the first night I went out on obs, out in the car onto the Maasai Mara, entirely alone.  It was just the hyenas and me.  I pinched myself, but when I opened my eyes I was still driving, free as a bird through a conservancy in Africa.  I sat at the den with Waffles, Sauer, Peepers, Sauer’s two little cubs, Digs (who has a beautiful right D-notch that makes her unmistakable), and a new hyena named Angie until well past dark.  I talked to them more than I otherwise would have, but I think I did the best job I’ve ever done recording behaviors; ended up with seven pages of data!  Angie’s apparent anxiety disorder really added up.  She was constantly groaning and sniffing Sauer and Peepers as they were sacked out, ears back head-bobbing away.  I almost got out of the car and t2 lunged her myself for being so pesky, but I guess Sauer and Peepers are used to her constant need for reassurance; over half an hour of near constant groaning and in-your-face sniffing, and there were only about four aggressions!  Mind-boggling; I didn’t know hyenas could be so patient.  And Angie, you are one of a kind.

To my despair, Philimon left for his 2-week leave yesterday morning.  I gave him a big hug, and he said he’s not worried because we will see each other again.  I miss him already, but found out he has five kids: three girls and two boys.  He was so excited to see them, therefore I couldn’t help but be excited too.  Jorji, who looks about 30, has six kids: four girls and two boys.  He says he misses them when away.  It would be hard to be far from one’s family for four week stretches at a time, and when these guys go home, it isn’t to rest.  Philimon has tons of corn he will planting throughout the two weeks; he says he has to rent a tractor and hire help.  It makes me tired just thinking of it!

Moses returned Monday night!  It was super to see him.  Jorji told him I was coming, and he said he remembered everything about me but my name as soon as he saw the picture I had brought for him in the kitchen tent.  Moses is less quiet than the other two; the amount of chatter in camp has considerably increased. And he has a perfect smile.  Unlike Jorji and Philimon, who have one wife, Moses has two and many kids.  When I asked after Moses’ break, he said he and almost his entire family had malaria and were in and out of the hospital.  Planting fields of corn as a break suddenly looked mighty attractive!

Last night was a happening night in Happy Zebra.  At poop o’clock, we collected four poop samples within five minutes.  Mumbai, Shangri-La, Snapper, and Sawtooth.  There was nowhere safe to put them but in the back of the Maruti.  Oh.  My.  I very nearly died of asphyxiation by poop.

Poop smell aside, it was excellent watching Queen Pike at the den.  Poor Pike just wanted to play with her subjects, but they were so nervous playing with the alpha.  She attempted to play with Ojibway, but Ojibway looked terribly uncomfortable the entire time, ears flat back and open-mouth appeasing throughout.  Then Pike tried Muon, Ojibway’s cub.  Muon was even more nervous, continually trying to combine ears back submissive posture backing off with sneaking away, but Pike just lumbered blithely after him.  She was like a president at a social event, wanting nothing more than to be treated like a normal person.  But as a president’s dinner guests probably watch every word they say, so Ojibway and Muon were cautious of their every move, almost begging Pike to instead aggress and get it over with like a typical ruler. 

After dinner, we hauled out tubes to pack in the poop.  Sitting poking at Mumbai’s impossible hair-filled liquid mess, I had to contemplate what my life has become.  The stupid stuff wouldn’t go into the tube no matter how much I shoved with the popsicle stick.  Then, perhaps the grossest thing that’s ever happened to me, I actually flung some spatterings of it onto my forehead! UGH!  Leaping up, I rushed to the toilet paper, making a huge fuss as Dave stopped scraping his poop sample, very confused.  When he discovered what had happened, boy did he ever laugh.  Hilarious, Dave.

18:36, Wednesday, 15 August, 2012

Yesterday morning we saw Judas in South!  My ex-hyena boyfriend.  Sorry Judas, but I’m a one hyena at a time kind of girl, and Gaza’s got me now.  But my story stays that Judas betrayed me for a cuter hyena (and maybe 30 pieces of silver too).  Either way, it was sure great to see him!

It was our last chance for darting before Dave had to switch to doing his monthly prey transects in the mornings, and we had no luck.  We saw about every hyena in the clan minus the three targets, no joke.  Pala has grown an awfully lot since last summer!  But she’s no less playful.  During the patch of time we didn’t see anything, we exercised our brains by translating everything we said into both Spanish and Swahili.  The Spanish was exceptionally difficult / difícil/ ngumu, but we were both surprised how much came back when we tried. 

I appreciate the laundry mamas very much after washing my underwear yesterday.  The guys here prefer not to wash women’s underwear, understandably so.  It was good for me to remember how much work goes into hand-washing something; maybe I’ll be a bit more careful with the barbeque sauce from now on.  However, it was a nice feeling of Laura Ingalls Wilder-accomplishment once they were hanging out to dry.

Yesterday I cried.  I cried because a gecko found its way into my shower towel, and I didn’t know it was there.  When I whipped it off the wooden stick wall, I found wriggling bits of what I thought must be some worm or parasite.  Looking down,  I realized they were bits of a tiny gecko’s tail.  I not only deprived him of a stellar defense mechanism, but he had a big hole scraped on the side of his head.  I tearfully brought him to my tent, lay my towel in the water basin I had earlier washed my clothes in and put him there.  I’m not sure how much geckos need immediate water or what their favorite food is, but I put some water in the cap to my malaria medicine and tried not to think about what I was doing as I profusely apologized to three innocent ants while swiftly squishing them for him to eat.  Returning from obs, Patrick was gone, and I felt hopeful.  Then this morning I saw his tiny tailless form plastered to the roof of my tent!  But he had fallen to the ground gone by this afternoon, and is now buried beneath a pretty white stone outside, much like the poor spider Janie and I accidentally killed in our attempts to move it safely outside for Lia’s sake.  Sometimes it’s awful being so big! I did have a look at Patrick’s feet before burying him: what a triumph of evolution!  I could see the little pads that were magnified a thousand times in more than one of my college biology books, little propagators of the Van der Waals attractions which allow these little guys to stick to things. 

All in all, yesterday was just hard on the heart.  Nature can be cruel, sometimes to an unsettling point that awakens philosophical questions with no apparent answers.  We drove by where a wildebeest crossing was occurring on evening obs.  There, just up from the river, was a zebra, walking with its intestines literally hanging out of its left side.  It seemed to be in shock as it slowly walked forward, and I could hardly bear to look at it.  If only it hadn’t fought so to survive against that crocodile it might not be suffering anymore!  I prayed that something would make a meal of it soon, and tried not to think about it any longer.  But when I see a creature suffering, I feel somewhere it’s wrong I should so lack suffering that I can conceivably forget about their plight as they exist alongside me in such horrendous agony.  It’s not like when I saw the wildebeest dying last summer and felt a quiet calm and beauty in its natural passage.  This suffering was violent and gruesome, and I just wanted to erase it despite its being part of nature.  There is nothing I love more than the natural biological world, but it’s easy to forget that it’s not all hunky-dorey.

Then, at the den, I got to see more baby pigs.  But these baby pigs, the tiniest and cutest I’ve ever seen, were bacon for our hyenas.  One minute we were watching everyone lounge by the den, the next Waffles wanders off to return about ten minutes later with a freshly killed baby warthog.  Droopy had another, although I can’t imagine he’d killed it.  Dave was disappointed that Waffles didn’t aggress on Peepers when Peepers came up and took some of her hog without a fuss from either; he’s desperate to know who is the true alpha.  I think it’s neat that they’re so tolerant of one another.  I saw my first maternal interventions when Peepers chased subadult Polar (bears lineage) away from the feeding Droopy.  Peepers had no interest in eating anymore, but she wouldn’t tolerate someone stealing from her kid.  Dave thinks she’s a bad mom, but I think she just has different mothering tactics; she didn’t leave Droopy’s side the rest of the evening, guarding him as he ate.  Maybe she doesn’t enjoy nursing much, but that doesn’t mean she can’t provide in other ways.

On our way back to camp, we had to drive through what has been termed the “Hippo Minefield” in order to check on the whereabouts of some lions we hadn’t been able to accurately count due to tour cars.  There were hippos everywhere on either side of the road, crossing the road, making us nervous by standing as though wanting to cross the road yet refusing to do so and forcing us to sandwich through them.  Once through the minefield, we shined around only to find the lions had gone.  The gauntlet had been for mere glory.

Today I rode in the car for 9 hours with Dave as we drove all of North Territory, counting every mammal and ostrich we saw, taking a detection distance with a range-finder and a compass bearing for each group.  Maybe it doesn’t sound like much fun, but the drive was beautiful, and I loved being out in the day for a change.  We got to hang with the diurnals; the treat of seeing a lilac-breasted roller was a commonality at this time of day.  Big crocs lounged in the sun by the river, those who weren’t participating in the migration crossing that had drawn about twenty vehicles, and a juvenile one floated in Stank Ho (I had no part in naming that water hole).  I got a picture of a little snake, rustling as it climbed up a patch of grass; it had a pretty white belly and was otherwise black.  I fully intend to look it up in our reptile book later.  Saw three baby warthogs, just about as small and this time thankfully alive, doo-doo-doodling after their mother across the road, tails straight in the air.  All of the antelope were out and actively feeding/wandering about.  Baby hippos stood amongst their parents who slept in a perfect row of lazy lard along the bank.  And we saw an elephant coming up out of the river, the lower half of its body darkened from its recent swim, approaching a group of eland who nervously backed into the woods, dewlaps characteristically swinging side to side.

The most exciting sighting of the morning was a black rhino!  I almost fell off my seat in joy; my first rhino of 2012!  No tourists had yet spotted it, and it was just wandering about through the grass and amongst the bushes.  I watched it until it was out of sight, which is a while when you consider the size of a rhino.

We got out for brunch a safe 350 meters from the nearest herd of cape buffalo.  The morning was gorgeous, the sky blue, the green leaves at the top  of the little woods trees lining the road contrasted against it.  Boiled eggs, avocado, tomatoes, onions, bananas, oranges, and Jorji’s amazing cinnamon rolls.

Counting the zebra and wildebeest around the crossing area was a challenge, and the vocalizing zebra did nothing to keep me from losing my focus.  I’m always so fascinated by what makes them vocalize upon reaching the other side; are they worked up in the form of an adrenaline rush over what just happened, looking for a lost conspecific, shouting relief or victory?  We may never know, but we hear their prodigious yells in the distance even from camp during the crossing time.  I was also distracted by three lost-looking wildebeest calves.  They sweetly hung together; I don’t think a-one of them knew where its mother had gone.  Further down the river two wildebeest, probably drowned, floated in the rapids.  I assume a fair amount of calves are orphaned by the river and its scaled prehistoric inhabitants.

Driving the last part of North territory made me want to lie down in the tall grass and take a nap beneath the puffy white clouds that had gathered.  There was only tall reddish brownish amber grass, butterflies, big hills, and some distant elephants as far as the eye could see.  A much deserved break after a morning of laborious counting.

Miss the Talek hyenas.  There is no winning with traveling; upon my return, I know I will miss these hyenas too.  It’s much as I couldn’t be happier here in Kenya, but ache to see my family, friends, cat and Grandpa’s horse again.  Sounds like Julia and Benson will finally be returning from Nairobi tomorrow, and I will catch a lift back to Talek camp on Friday.

Wonder if the lions will be talkative again tonight.  Their roars have replaced hippo munches as my most recent lullaby.  

14:36, Sunday, 12 August, 2012

Monday night brought the Happy Zebra clan.  Dave and I imitated the chorus of grunting gnu as we drove past their noisy herds; I can only imagine what an onlooker would have thought.  One thing about wildebeest though: they never seem to get over the novelty of a car, even after it has ceased to be novel.  I kind of love this about them.  They’ll look at you like they’ve never seen a car before, with their oddly spaced eyes on either side of a flat face looking surprised and indignant, sure you are paying utmost attention to them.  Then they show you what’s what by bucking and kicking away, grunting as they stop and turn again to face you from a greater distance, something like my old paint Licorice when she didn’t want to be caught for a ride.

We saw Mumbai!  Mumbai, the male from last summer whose perceived ugly face earned him the name of a perceived ugly city.  I love his face though.  It’s so stretched out and cute, huge forehead, and I couldn’t tell you what his spots look like because all I need to see is that face and I instantly know.  It was excellent to see him again!

At Windsor Den were Cosby, Go Fish, Ojibway, Muon,  Sawtooth, Malo, Hawk, and Nat Geo.  Cosby is Go Fish’s mom, Ojibway Muon’s, Sawtooth Malo’s, and Hawk Nat Geo’s.  These hyenas are way more relaxed than those of the Talek West clan, who constantly aggress on one another; I think this is probably because their clan is so large, so the hierarchy begs constant reinforcement, and there is always a hyena around to coalition and make some poor guy feel extra small and giggly.  Sure, the Happy Zebraites, Northites, and Southites aggress, but it seems a lot less frequent and intense.  Affability outside of the family is tossed around for a change.  Hawk gave off a friendly groan as she approached and sniffed Sawtooth, who allowed her there as she nursed Malo.  Cosby attempted to play with the nursing Ojibway, then going from her to Hawk to the nursing Sawtooth, lightly attempting to play and licking them.  The cubs ambled right up and around the little Maruti, not so different from our cubs, but they remained totally unconcerned even when we started the car.  And I have yet to see a mother play with her cubs in Talek West - not so here.  Hawk ignored her severe limp and played like a little cub with Nat Geo.  She grabbed onto his leg, pulling him back as he tried to hobble away.  Upon allowed escape, he’d run back out of the dark, his distinctly huge spots whizzing by in the maglight’s beam, and jump at her until she grabbed him by the neck and they turned circles chasing and nipping at one another, Malo and Cosby periodically joining in the fun.  Marvelous!

Tuesday morning after obs we drove to get some drinking water, the rain water that currently filled our last remaining jug rapidly declining.  The drive to Olooloolo (sp) Gate was the goddess of picturesque.  I had never driven so close to the escarpment, light purply blue growing into deep and light greens as we got closer, a long mountain-like ridge rising flat and rapid like a  tree-spattered plateau.  I made a pact with myself to climb it before the year is up.  I cannot imagine what the view must be like from up there, what with the view being so unimaginable from its base .  On the drive we also saw itty-bitty baby warthogs, little tails stuck like flags in the air as they ran about their mother.  I must have driven Michelle, Charlie, the IRES boys, Julie and Nora nuts talking about how much I couldn’t wait for October so that I could see baby warthogs, and here I barely had to wait until August!  I wished to be like Fern with a warthog Wilbur.  Then, as though baby warthogs weren’t enough, we found a tiny fuzzy waterbuck wandering about its mother.  They look even more out of place in miniature with their seemingly Arctic-evolved coats, something like an impossibly cute diminutive-faced reindeer who puffed up after a bad run with the hair dryer.

I could spend all day every day at the North and Happy Zebra dens.  The north den Tuesday night was great; Sauer’s two little black cubs were out, tumbling and play-romping, continually getting stuck on Sauer’s back as they unsuccessfully attempted to climb over her.  Mom disciplined them with t2 lunges when they got too out of line.  Dave says Sauer is a wonderful mom, always at the den.  Waffles is always at the den as well, usually either sitting in it so we can barely see her head poking up, groaning into it so that we can see everything but her head, or renovating it as dirt flies everywhere.  She’s quite the construction worker.  Her cub is the youngest; I think it’s barely a month old.  Dave and company had to dart her twice due to a malfunctioning collar, and in the week between she went from being dry to having milk.  Then, when her cub was only about a week old, Queen Waffles moved her to a communal den!  One week is an extraordinarily short time for a cub to be at a natal den.  I guess no one would dare mess with the prince/princess, but no harm in sticking around to safeguard just in case.

Peepers is often at the North den as well.  We suspect Peepers and Waffles may have been litter mates.  The Serena clans have not been studied half as long as the Talek ones, so the histories of many of the adults are mysteries.  But Peepers and Waffles are crazily tolerant of one another, groaning and sniffing about each others’ faces.  (And after all, they did overthrew RBC together, no small feat.)

Toronto, the male, showed up at the den as the evening progressed.  Silly stupid Toronto; did he really think he could get close to the den with so many little black cubs about?  He knew it was a harebrained idea too, the way he was creeping forward.  He looked pitifully afraid, lifting each leg high and placing it softly down, crouched in slow-motion terror but desperately desiring proximity.  Ten meters and Sauer had it; she chased Toronto like there was no tomorrow, Waffles hot on her heels.  Toronto zipped away and they all disappeared into tall grass as Peepers, with her perpetually tired-looking white-eyebrowed face, stood up to watch them off into the distance, ears perked forward.  Dave narrated the whole thing; he and Andy Gersick, a graduate student, have decided that Sauer would always be yelling if she had a voice.  It makes me laugh so dang hard when he imitates what she would be saying.  Then he gives Waffles this play-land voice.  So when Sauer lifted her head, it was a deep, “Toronto, is that you?”  Then she tore off after him, and Waffles got up, “Oooh!  Chasing males!  I love chasing males!” and joined in, to which Peepers stood and said, “Hey, where’d everybody go?”  Anthropomorphism at its finest.  Even the best scientists like Dave (who has the most incredibly careful, precise, and ambitious methodology of anyone I’ve ever met – excellent mentor), can’t resist the occasional in-jest comparison were hyenas to think like people.  Sometimes their behavior just begs it, although it never enters our work.

For the first time in something like a month, I fell asleep to the patter of rain on my tent.  I talked to Michelle on Wednesday morning, and she said they received 20mm even in Talek, where it has been dry as a bone and a thousand times as dusty!

We darted Bartlet Wednesday morning!  Dave had a perfect shot.  I’m not so sure her name shouldn’t be Fartlet, though; she about killed me as I rode in the back of the little Maruti with her.  Good grief!  Despite her unladylike ways, she now has a pretty new necklace and is doing perfectly.

21:18, Sunday, 12 August, 2012

We drove through Oz Valley Wednesday night as we passed from South, where we had gone to pick up the eye-covering shroud and make sure Bartlet was gone, to Happy Zebra.  Oz Valley has recently fallen prey to a routine burn; where once the hills were grassy and green, now everything is charred, and I couldn’t keep the Lion King instrumental during Simba’s return to his ruined home from playing through my head as we drove.  Supposedly man-made burns are good; many antelope like the fresh green grass that comes up, and before 200 days are up the land has returned to its former state.  It just makes you wonder, though: why?  Surely natural processes would take care of things.  Dave is researching burns as a small part of his dissertation, and we had a good discussion on management practices, coming out of the conversation just as puzzled as we entered in.  The only thing I can think is that maybe natural fires scare the conservancy managers because they are more uncontrollable, so these smaller burns are a safeguard.  But who knows?  Dave plans to talk to the head of the conservancy for some more insight, and I will be curious to know what he says.

A few topi wandered about the green-dotted black ash.  A female stepped aside, and lo!  A freshly born topi, still all sandy brown and gangly-legged!  I have never seen such a little topi; it hadn’t even been painted with dark browns and black yet, still raw woodwork. 

I met Pike in Happy Zebra; I only saw her once last summer.  She has become the alpha since her mother Coi died at the paws of lions.  She was out with her two year-old cubs Arbalet (sp) and Eremet (sp), her subadult kid named Boom, and her little sister Coelacanth.  The males Yuma, Istanbul, and Mumbai crowded the outskirts of the family meeting, Yuma with a completely useless and hanging back left leg leg, poor guy. :( But how Pike and her family played!  They played for at least an hour; she, Boom, and Coel romped about with the cubs, chasing and chasing and chasing some more.  We followed them off into the grass, ready to record critical incidences, but all they did the entire time was play.  How wonderful to see!  My favorite moment of the night was when the family surrounded the car.  Another testament of how behavior is affected by lack of people: to them, our car meant nothing other than a novelty.  I was reminded how absolutely huge and impressive adult hyenas are as Pike stood right next to our dwarfed car, her big nose sniffing the side-view mirror and poking slightly through the window inches from a nervous Dave.  It was spectacular having her so close. Odd, though, how this big white thing that periodically revved only yielded curiosity. I love the curiosity; it makes me exquisitely happy.  But shouldn’t evolution have made these animals more cautious?  Suppose the car turned out to be a big white monster?  Well, if so, Pike wouldn’t have it fit and healthy.  We had to start the car and move because she attempted to make it her chew toy.  The animal with the greatest jaw pressure per size in the mammalian kingdom is not what you want chewing on your car.

Just before we left for the night, we followed Pike et al. to a dead wildebeest.  Yuma stood over it and Boom sniffed, but pretty quickly everyone left it - untouched.  The adult wildebeest was not killed, apparent upon inspection.  We think perhaps it died of some parasite or disease that made it unappetizing to the hyenas.  It seems terribly odd that no one even took a bite.

13:39, Monday, 13 August, 2012

Love spending my days in these Fisi Camps, both so wonderful and yet so different.  For instance, the butterflies.  I have traded the graceful little white flutterers with orange tipped wings for a big beautiful species with green wings outlined in velvety black, the gentle yellow wind-riders for long-flapped orangey red current creators.  Yet the little white ones are here and there and everywhere.  Kelsey and the bushbabies are having their place temporarily held by tiny trilling mongooses, who I cannot look at without wanting to squeeze the living daylights out of because they’re so stinkin’ cute.  I love sharing my breakfast eggs with them.  The baboons frequent here more than Talek.  A troop that resulted in a baboon hanging, feeding, sitting, or meandering about in every direction I turned cracked branches and yelled at one another Thursday morning and afternoon, returning day after day.  I will be sitting in my tent transcribing, and look up to see either Philimon’s (finally learned how to properly spell his name!) little rocks flying past my screen, or Jorji thumping by chasing them away in his sandals.  Therefore, as usual, they did not understand that I only wanted to watch them when I wandered back into the trees. They shot furtive glances over their shoulders as they rushed off deeper into the woods.  I sat in a patch of sunlight hoping they would return, and laughed as instead a herd of impala, startled by the sudden influx of baboons, whipped through the brush.  Impala must have developed a recent liking for the surrounding area, because I frequently hear the ridiculous “shooooooo throaty burp eee throaty burpy eee throaty burby eee. shoooooooo” of a male pursuing some unfortunate member of his harem.

Bats are still here, although they don’t have any gargantuan moths to eat like the fake-eyed one we saw back in Talek, which I mistook for a bat itself as it was quite literally their size.  The moths at the Serena dinner table are all sized like those in Michigan.  Plus, the bats here take to alighting on the roof within the lab tent as opposed to just under its awning.  Therefore if I am working while my computer is charging, I often have one flapping about my head.

Skinks.  Skinks and geckos are easier to find here, as the brush isn’t so thick.  Lots of lined skinks running this way and that, and a little gecko shamelessly sticking to the side of the shower.

Exercise has changed too.  I miss playing soccer, I really do.  But jumping on a mini trampoline at the bottom of the driveway, leaping an exuberance the drop-dead gorgeous view ahead makes you feel isn’t so bad, although sometimes I wonder how I can survive such awful, awful alternatives.

Thursday night I watched as Sauer fetched her cubs out of the den in her mouth, apparently announcing dinnertime as she then sacked out to nurse them.  Dave had told me Sauer likes to pick up her cubs, which made me very excited because I had never seen a hyena do so.  Hyenas pick their cubs up by putting their mouth around the little ones’ tiny heads and lifting!  I would not want my head anywhere near those powerful jaws, let alone inside them, even if they belonged to my mother.  But Sauer was very gentle as she set them down beside her and started to groom while they ate (or rather while one of them hogged most of the food by repeatedly t2 lunging the other away, until finally the smaller one squeezed into the less-preferred position between Sauer’s back legs and accessed a nipple).  Sauer is an amazing mom, something like Martin in South, who is always at the den in the mornings when we go there looking for animals to dart.  And Dad, you would appreciate that almost every time I see Martin, I cannot help but ask her, “MARTIIIN! What is your profession?”  To which Dave appropriately responds, “Hoo hoo hoo!”

Friday night felt like Fall, the wind just so that I put my sweatshirt on almost immediately, the sky gently sunny with the perfect amount of benign wispy clouds.  We drove through the area where Lia and I originally coined the term Dr. Seuss Ville due to the appropriately spaced, craggly Ballonites (sp) trees.  Mumbai gave us a good chase loping to the northeast; Dave thought he was a female, and when Mumbai turned his distinctive head, Dave yelled, “Aw!  All of that for this?!”  I, however, was delighted to see him.  We were terribly curious as to where he was going as neared the Happy Zebra border, but he got rid of us by pooping and disappearing as we got out to collect the smelly gift.

Hawk’s limp from a few nights ago was completely healed, yet another testament to the miraculous immune system of Crocuta crocuta.  Then, a testament to how deceiving tall grass can be, we drove into a hole.  I expected the hyenas to bolt when I got out to push; that’s the only reaction I’d ever witnessed.  Nope.  Sawtooth couldn’t give two hoots, and she and the others just stood there looking at me!  I was standing amidst the hyenas, the nearest cub 15 meters away.  Wonderful experience, but undoubtedly unnerving, and I had Dave keep a close eye on them from the wheel as I turned to push.  I was the one prepared to bolt this time, adrenaline swiftly pumping, but pretty quick they were going about their business again, not minding me much.  Wild!  I was nervous they’d feel the need to test me with nips like they try to test the car.

Saw Pike’s family playing about near the landmark called Culvert City again.  They appeared one by one out of the culvert beneath the road.  Snapper was there this time!  Snapper is Pike’s sister.  Dave says they always used to be together, but then they didn’t seem so close after Pike rose above Snapper to be queen when Coi died.  Therefore, we were happy to see them together again.

Saturday morning we saw two of the target females: Java and Badger!  Dave hasn’t seen these two since he’s been back, so what luck!  We staked out near the den, hoping they would wander away from the lugga toward us.  But those lazy loafs just stayed sacked out the entire morning, until we were forced to give up around 10:30.  It was kind of neat staying in one place for the entirety of obs though, a change to observe the single buffalo, tommys, and topi as they wandered by about their day.  We also used Dave’s phone to get the latest on American politics.  Paul Ryan.  Oh bother. 

Saturday night I had a hippo loudly munching grass next to my tent as I fell asleep, smiling into my pillow.  I woke up at 1:00 for some reason, and that hippo was still munching directly outside my tent.  I shook my head and rolled back to sleep.  Woke up at 5:15 for obs the next morning; you guessed it, that hippo was still munching.  Luckily it had moved away back into the trees, so I could exit my tent for work. 

I swear I would be 1,000 pounds were my metabolism any slower, what with Philimon’s muffins.  Dave and I have blown through three full breakfast buckets since I’ve been here.  Breakfast buckets consist of about three muffin tins (36 muffins) each, and I always have more than my fair share, eating at least 2/3rds - with permission, of course. Today Jorji is replenishing the bucket with cinnamon rolls.  We’re roughin’ it out here, I tell you what.

Wednesday, 8 August, 2012

Happy birthday Alex!  Wish you were here to turn 23, because I sure do miss you.  You would love it here in Africa, but you are in a place presumably more beautiful than a thousand Africas.

11:48, Thursday, 9 August, 2012

Sunday dawned bright and early.  I arose to take Nora, Julie, Ian, and Tyler to say goodbye to the hyenas at the den.  With a promise to be back at 7:00 for breakfast before the Nairobi take-off, I thought it would be an easy transcription.  Wrong!  Michelle had discovered where most of the cubs have gone: Croton Edge Den.  The mystery of why Oddish, Hydrogen, Helium, Gypsum and Violet were the only ones we ever saw at Dave’s Den was solved.  Croton Edge Den is amazing, very open on a hill with only one group of bushes (not to mention a glorious view of the sunrise).  Individuals and behavior are ten times easier to see, but Sunday morning still brought a challenge as there were about 30 hyenas!  It was a great farewell for the soon-to-be departers; even the males braved the den for them to say goodbye.  Aqua and Harpy were there as well, two hyenas we see relatively rarely. Lots of data for only 40 minutes!

After breakfast, Jackson started to take my Serena bag back to my tent, telling me I was not supposed to go.  I smiled as he slung me over his shoulder and assured he needn’t worry, I would be back.  The others, however, wouldn’t (at least not for a long time).  I got a bit more time with them, riding squished as an ant beneath a shoe with 6 plus luggage in the hilux to Sarova, where I would catch a ride to Serena.  A kind Spanish safari guide agreed to take me in his ridiculously enormous bus-truck thing, a vehicle I have never appreciated as it seems to terrify the animals.  Yet I was hugely grateful.  I gave Ian and Tyler extra long hugs, unsure if I would see them again, the goodbye lump risen in my chest.  Nora and Julie got slightly shorter hugs, because I will doubtless see them either in East Lansing or when they return next summer.  Then it was off with the smiling Spanish man.  I sat in the front facing a sea of somewhere around 20 Spaniards, frantically trying to remember some Spanish as they flung questions about hyenas at me, failing miserably as every time I spoke it came out in Swahili.  The guide kindly translated for me; the tourists were especially interested in hyenas’ resistance to disease, and very excitedly pointed out a hyena to me on one of our wildlife-viewing stops.  I beamed; I absolutely love being associated with spotted hyenas.  Concerning the gas-guzzling bus, I have to admit it was fun standing on the front seat, facing forward high up through the open top in a Jack and Rose Titanic-esque pose, wind making a mess of my hair. 

At the Mara River Bridge, the safari guide scoffed and slapped away my hand when I tried to pay him.  He arranged a ride with some of the most jovial Kenyans I have ever met: so friendly.  One of them moved to sit in the bed of the large truck on top of the sandy gravel they were transporting to Serena Lodge so that I could sit in the cab, sandwiched between the portly driver and a man who looked about 20 but was 34 with six kids.  The men were delighted to discover I speak Swahili, and we spoke it the entire way, a challenge as I felt like falling over from lack of sleep.  But I still had enough in me to swell with undiminished elation as I began to recognize Serena.  The place has such a beauty that no human memory could fully sustain, and holes were poked in whatever holds our emotions so that every feeling of clarity and joy known to man pulsed through my veins.  The men insisted on driving me right to camp.  I was sorry to see them go; wish people in America could seem the type of content that people I meet here do.

I relished in being reunited with Dave; we always have so much fun.  But I most especially loved being reunited with Philoman and Jorjio.  I cannot begin to describe what it felt like to see them again.  Such a soul as Philoman’s has never existed on this planet, and Jorji’s laugh and smile are more contagious than chicken pox.  I truly love them, and I would be fine if the world were filled with mostly Philomans and Jorjies.  Then I got to see the Majis again (maji = water): Amanda and Chris, some of the coolest people I have ever met.  Chris has obtained his masters (hooray!), so they are here collecting more river samples for Amanda’s Ph.D.  They joined us for dinner, bringing beer and cheese bread to compliment the meal of chipate and lentils fit for a king from Philoman.  It was like I had never left, if only Lia had been there.

And the wildness, oh the wildness.  The camp, oh the camp, with the view, oh the view, on the red-dirt stoned treed grassy hill, oh that hill.  A shard of heaven come to alight on earth.

Seeing the Serena hyenas again was like seeing those of Talek again:  strange to see how the little ones have grown, how little some of the adults have changed.  I’m only sorry that I was not here to be a part of their daily lives over the past year.  Zoe, the newly queened Waffles (crazy low-ranking Waffles who banded with almost equally low-ranking Peepers to overthrow RBC, a crazy anomaly in hyena behavior), Peepers and her new cub Droopy, Hooker (professions lineage...), Sauer, RBC and her cub were all about North territory or at the den.  Cracaw (sp) Den, of the Eastern European cities plain, tucked away in the changed topography of tall grass and African Dr. Seuss Trees where the waterbuck roam.  It lightly rained and the smell was all I ever need to smell.  Droopy, with his unique face, cutely hunkered down in the drizzle as Waffles’ head suddenly materialized above the grass.  She lay in/on the den hole, completely blocking Sauer from accessing her little black cubs.  Dave helped me polish my behaviors as it grew dark.  When we drove home hippos punctuated the side of the road, their orange eyes glowing in the headlights.  Funny to think these are the ancestors of whales.  Such strange, strange, strangely marvelous animals.  And they went so far as to grace us with their presence at camp that night, burpy bellows reminding me of the time I thought I was going to die a hippoine death last summer trekking to the choo after bedtime.

Monday morning we set out in hopes of deploying at least one of Dave’s last three GPS collars in South territory.  Almost immediately we came upon Bartlet, one of his targets, and followed her this way and that almost all morning in hopes of a good opportunity.  We came close several times, but no cigar due to tall grass and her funny stashing behavior.  Bartlet had a baby wildebeest kill, and she kept going off to stash body parts, returning time and again to the carcass and refusing to hold still.  She could barely carry the biggest piece, and had us giggling as she walked with the entire ribcage and bloody hanging hide, nose up, ears laying back and perking forward as she parted the grass while struggling to keep from tripping.  She couldn’t give a care in the world that we were following her so close, the first of several instances that have really struck me with the differences in behavior and overall demeanor of the hyenas in Talek versus here. 

Bartlet stashed the greater portion of the little wildebeest in a water hole!  Dave says hyenas have been commonly cited as storing food in water, probably as a safeguard from other carnivores.  I imagine the water probably diminishes the smell.  Clever clever hyenas.  Never cease to amaze.  Dave’s attempted coaxing, “Come on Bartlet, you’ve had a long day of stashing, why don’t you sack out and rest?” yielded nothing, and eventually we lost Bartlet in the tall grass of a lugga.  But the morning was as yet fruitful in terms of darting; Dave walked me through assembling and dissembling a dart, and he has some excellent tricks to dispel air bubbles and keep from losing even tiny drops of Telizol.  The calm atmosphere was great for being shown maneuvering tactics, and the whole experience was much more chill than I knew an attempted darting could be.  My confidence increased one hundredfold just by listening.

16:13, Tuesday, 7 August, 2012

The second of August brought a beautiful morning at Dave’s den.  The hyenas were lethargic, with only Oddish sacked out by the den while Mouse Trap and Twister wandered about in the bushes.  A group of curious giraffes looked down at us as if to say, “Just when we found a place away from the road, these hyena lovers traipse through the grass and disturb our peace.”  Sorry, giraffes.  Since my scans consisted of “ODD so by den” (Oddish sacked out by the den), “TWST oos bushes” (Twister out of sight bushes), and “MT wan 5m – D” (Mouse Trap wanders 5 meters from the den), we took the opportunity to pretend we were simultaneously fisi and twiga (giraffe) researchers, stealing some photographs and watching the three little 6-footers giraffling about.

I started practicing shooting again on the second, finding out I would be going to Serena in a few days to help Dave out with darting, etc. as Julia would be away taking the IRES students to Nairobi.  I was all kinds of excited to return to Serena, the first Fisi Camp I called home.  The bull’s eye had to be replaced by the time I was through practicing, previously weakened by Charlie, who discovered a talent he didn’t know he had.

That evening after dinner I braved the kitchen tent, determined to make some gratitude brownies for the balloon pilots who had helped me get unstuck the night before.  I made Tyler come watch to make sure I was doing everything correctly.  Well, Michelle had written down the recipe, but those darn British cook by weight.  How am I supposed to know how many grams are in a cup?  Despite our carefully calculated conversions, I somehow still ended up putting in waaaaaay too much sugar.  This resulted in big chocolate air bubbles rising up and generally exploding all over the oven. Even Joseph could not rescue the would-be brownies, although he and I stayed up late trying to salvage them long after Tyler had given up for bed.  We couldn’t help but laugh as we continually opened the oven to watch them bubble and ooze, never any more cooked than the last time we checked.  I honestly don’t know what I do wrong.  Stephen chuckled from his post outside the kitchen tent as Joseph jokingly proclaimed that I would never get a husband were I a Maasai. I retorted that men are perfectly capable of cooking, and that tasty food isn’t necessary to survive.  For whatever reason they found that quite hilarious and roared away. 

Too embarrassed to take the pilots my brownie soup, we ate half at breakfast the next morning and almost the entire other half went to an ecstatic sweet-toothed Wilson.  I honestly don’t know what I do wrong.  At least Riz appreciated the story.

The next morning at the den it hit me that I am absolutely doing what I have always loved to do best, but this time as a job.  Whereas I used to work hard finishing my homework so I could climb trees and wade through grass over my head in hopes of catching a glimpse of a deer or goose, squirrel or raccoon through my dad’s binoculars, here now I was sitting with my very own binos propped up against the steering wheel, watching hyenas as my homework.  Way cool. 

Not many hyenas were out beyond the den that morning, but we did see a stillborn baby zebra.  It was lying in the grass, wetly wrapped in placenta, curled around with perfect stripes showing through.  The mother, still bloody from giving birth, stood next to it looking down.  It was as though she were wondering what she did wrong, and I was filled with sadness.  Two other zebras approached her, but she could not be persuaded to join them and stayed by her dead baby as they walked off.

To add to the sorrow, I finished reading Marley and Me later in the day.  I literally sobbed, and had to stay in my tent for a while to hide my puffy red eyes.  It made me miss my childhood dog Belle, my best pal growing up.  As though the hyenas who goofily roll in anything stinky and stand with their ears all perked forward when we approach don’t remind me of her enough as is.

20:48

August fourth was a bitter-sweet day.  It was Ian, Tyler, Nora, and Julie’s last day in the Mara.  To celebrate a wonderful summer, we all dressed in Maasai garb and walked the hour and a half to Talek.  It was beyond fun, and the Maasai really got a kick at some wazungu (white people) participating in their culture.  We got looks and smiles the whole way to town.  As for me, I felt I had been born and raised a Maasai: overlapping shukas plucked by the breeze, kanga blowing behind like a cape, jingling necklace announcing my whereabouts, manyattas of mud huts stretching for kilometers around across the flat or gently sloped grassland, a blanket of blessed clouds blocking the intense midday sun.  I could easily imagine I had known this forever.

In town, we ate at G and G’s, a nice new restaurant.  Chicken and chips.  The protein of the chicken made me feel full, a rare feeling here given the carb-based diet.  We drank cold soda, and afterwards bought some rudimentary chocolate.  While Nora and Tyler shopped for the finishing pieces to their outfits, I went off to talk with some kids, two of whom I recognized as Caroline and Juliet.  They had a friendly dog with them whose nipples were prominent; I asked if she had puppies, to which they excitedly responded yes before leading me through an alley between shops to their courtyard home.  Off to the side of some hanging clothes strung between two concrete walls was a tiny cardboard box shelter for Sue, the mother, and her two puppies, Simba and another whose name I didn’t catch.  The puppies were the sweetest things ever, plump with shy blue eyes, a tiny bit smaller than 6-week old hyena cubs, faces oddly looking more boxer-ish than Maasai doggish.  Simba is appropriately the color of a lion, and the other a dark blueish chocolate brown. It was perfect joy cradling them, the children all around beside themselves that I had come to see their puppies.  It was wonderful to actually hold those puppies since I can only ever hug the hyena cubs with my eyes.  I was reluctant to leave the alley, and was made to bring Michelle, Charlie, and Ian back to see them after announcing my side trip.

We sang in the bed of the hilux as Benson drove us to where we play soccer so we could cross the river back to camp.  Our voices chattered over the bumps, “Emyiaaaaaannna enkaina naishoOyo, EEee!”

Drove to Jackal Hill together after a shower, again in Maasai garb, to watch the sunset.  We ended up watching only gray clouds, but man did we have a blast.  We tried time and again to get a picture where we were all jumping like Maasai, failing miserably.  Tyler and I frolicked across the tall grass to a classic tree-bush nearby, the type Moon Pie likes to reside beneath. We cautiously checked for wildlife before ducking into it.  Therein was a sanctuary with a magic impermeability to all surrounding influence, the curved sturdy green-shrubbed branches enclosing to the ground in a shape like the leaves of a great willow tree.  I now understand why our hyenas fancy such places to rest.

Michelle killed us by attempting to dance and sing like a Maasai man alongside Benson and Wilson.  The hilarity!  She threw her head up and down like a nodding topi while trying, very seriously, to belt out low wild vibrato like the guys, next processing in the line between them, standing out like a sore thumb before lining up to jump like a grass rat beside two spring hares.  The scene is indescribable beyond the fact that  I almost fell off the top of the cruiser with laughter.

Dinner ended how it did last year.  After pizza, Joseph brought out a surprise cake that read “I love you all.”  Everyone sat around the table and passed the cake as Joseph and Wilson bestowed blessings.  Then we sang America’s national anthem; Joseph, Jackson, Lasingo, Benson, and Wilson followed with Kenya’s.  It was midnight by the time the festivities ended, I was packed for Serena and finally fell into bed.

21:02, Monday, 6 August, 2012

The 29^th brought a classic evening in carnivore research: car problems.  Charlie, Ian and I got a flat while in Fig Tree.  This took about an hour to carefully fix.  A nice tourist and his Israeli passenger stopped to make sure we were okay, and insisted we follow them to the main road.  Grateful but feeling bad to keep them waiting, we quickly went to start the car: dead battery (although we had only left our lights on for about five minutes minus the engine!).  So these poor fellows had to hang around and jumpstart our vehicle.  After considerable effort, this worked, and we puttered along after them.  Once they were gone down the main road, we ran into the male named Frisco and became very excited (I have only seen him once!), only to have our maglights die as he, Helios, and some others ran into a group of panicking zebra.  Put out because we were probably missing a hunt, we continued on.  In hindsight, those dead maglights were a Godsend; no sooner had we made it to Cheetah Tree Crossing than we looked down to find a flat spare.  Working maglights might have equated to a flat in the middle of hungry hyenas, forcing us to succumb to a sleepover in the cramped hilux.  As it was, we waited in the moonlight for Michelle and Wilson to come pick our tire up for repairs, getting through several “would you rather” questions in deja vu of the night Ian, Tyler, and I were stuck without a phone.  They came, and Michelle, Wilson and I drove to Talek where our ever-faithful Maina rescued us.  Exhausted, we returned with the fixed tire.  Propped rocks behind the wheels.  Put the jack under the car.  Jack starts to lean – good thing we have two!  Quickly crank up the other jack.  That jack decides to lean too.  Stop and think so we don’t get killed.  Think some more.  The rangers have lately blocked off restricted paths with big rocks!  Go collect piles of super heavy rocks.  Try not to throw up as I am still rather ill.  Prop the car up sturdily on rocks before messing with the jacks again.  Michelle walks off to try not to throw up as she is starting to feel ill.  Keep a lookout for wildlife as we take turns assessing in the prone position.  Take the jack out and reposition it.  Start to crank it up, it goes through a hole in the metal part we're using.  Try to lower it to reposition it, it won’t lower.  Finally get it to lower.  Prop it on a flat solid rock so it can reach a more promising place.  Hallelujah, change the tire.  Replace the rocks...minus a couple we kept just in case.  Drive back very slowly while watching the tire.  Return back to camp at 12:30 am.  It always feels splendid after such events to know you didn’t lose your head, and together figured things out step by step until they worked.  I slept well that night!

On the 30^th we gave a talk for MSU Professor Gabe Ording’s study abroad class.  Gabe was an RA here way back when the RAs bathed in the river, saw leopards every other day and recorded notes on legendary clan-founders like Cochise and 2-3-S.  His class was super interested in the hyenas and our work, so after the talk we brought them back to camp for a tour.  Gabe (so generous) bought all seven of us lunch and dinner following obs at the lodge (horrible day to still be feeling somewhat sick...all that food!), and told us stories of how camp used to be in his glory days.  He boasts of never having gotten stuck in a vehicle, which I find near impossible to believe.  You haven’t worked in the Mara unless you’ve gotten stuck!  Prime example further below.

August 1^st came, and with it a disbelief at that human construct of time, arbitrary past how it lives and breathes its way through biology.  If seasons didn’t change, we didn’t grow and die, perhaps August never would have been construed.  But it was, and here it is.  Listening to Alexi Murdoch as I transcribed in my tent, I looked out my window screen to see two vervet monkeys sitting on a branch, grooming a baby the size of my hand.  Something about this struck a chord (I think it was partially the melancholy music in the background), and I started to cry.  It was just so beautiful, watching those monkeys groom that baby, pieces of humanity’s beauty hidden outside of a human in a thicket where no one today would think to look.  And I was witnessing it.

That afternoon Joseph came looking for us.  There was a young man, probably 17 or so, who had fallen on a steep rock.  I couldn’t believe the way his knee was gushing blood.  His friends supported him, and as he threatened to faint I fought the faintness I felt long enough to grab the first aide kit and douse his knee with antibacterial powder before roughly wrapping it, trying not to think what I was doing and thanking God I’m not in med school.  We rushed him into the car, bleeding all over the floor mat, eyes glossing over in pain, and I drove him and his two friends as quickly as possible to the clinic.  I tired to make conversation and distract him as we flew down the road.  Thankfully, we made it to the clinic without him fainting.  The doctors fixed him up incredibly fast, and I drove him home, giving about ten others rides along the way in the spitting rain.  His mother was horribly upset when he limped into his mud home; she loudly exclaimed her worry in Maa as she threw her hands in the air.

The two friends stayed in the car to help me return to camp.  They took me to Dick Hedges Crossing.  I recognized the crossing from last summer when we had used it, but I didn’t know it was Dick Hedges Crossing, the crossing Michelle had told me at the beginning of my training never to use because no one uses it anymore.  The boys seemed to think I should cross, and it didn’t look bad, so I tried.  Sand = tricky.  Sand = stuck for three hours, with half of Talek (not a soul of whom you know) attempting to get you unstuck.  Sand = gathering rocks and branches and calling Ris the balloon pilot to come help you get unstuck.  Sand = practically going swimming wading back and forth through the river as you strategize.  Sand = clothes covered in mud. Sand = almost crying with relief when that car is finally unstuck.  And sand = returning home with many new friends, a good story for the old friends, and a promise never to go through Dick Hedges Crossing again.

After I changed into less muddy clothes, we all (Nora, Michelle, Charlie, Ian, Tyler, Julie, and I) cozied onto Michelle’s bed to watch The Holiday on her laptop.  A perfect end to a perfect adventure, and another night of sleeping well.

My computer is about to die, the hyenas are whooping, the sun is down and it’s time for sleep.  Will finish catching up soon.

20:04, Friday, 3 August, 2012

Well, Gaza would be my boyfriend if I were a hyena.  So sweet, always hanging out with the new males, chill and (as an unnecessary bonus) handsome.  But now that I’m getting to know the Fig Tree hyenas, Nikk is giving Gaza a bit of a run for his money.  Nikk is just his own hyena.  He has an endearing limp, a unique face, and is obediently submissive to even little Jar without question.  Nikk is light-colored, and somewhat of a loner, but a happy loner low-ranker.  We found him rolling around in the dirt the other night just for the heck of it.  Yes, I could never desert Gaza, but had I never met him I think Nikk would be my first pick.

Of course then, there’s Santiago.  But goodness knows his heart is occupied.  Santiago follows the female Lu everywhere.  I have never witnessed such an endearing love story.  Wherever Lu is, Santiago is close behind.  When Lu was being baited the other day, something I wasn’t there to see, Santiago apparently rushed to her rescue.  Baiting is when a bunch of males gather together to run in and alternately bite at a receptive female, hoping to somehow achieve a mating.  I’m not entirely sure how it works, but I know it’s about the only way males can get away with being aggressive toward a female, and it doesn’t sound at all pleasant for the female.  Apparently Santiago sort of rescued Lu the other day, coming between her and the other males.  His heart must have roared in his chest to see those other males around his love, and he ran to reclaim her.

The hyenas in Talek West have shifted their hang-out.  Whereas they have hung out by Centre Tree on our side of Sleeping Creek all summer, they have relocated to be most abundant on the opposite side of Sleeping Creek Lugga near Border Tree.  We finally solved the mystery just yesterday; the hyenas have moved dens, explaining the sparse action at Riverbend Den for the past week.  I don’t know what causes hyenas to move dens, but it fascinates me.  I wonder if it just keeps the location low-profile in terms of lions, but then the lions must know after 3 months of giggles and whoops and cub smells coming from one area.  Who knows exactly what causes the move?  But it’s so much fun to rediscover them, and it will be a nice change to drive to Dave’s Den first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening.  It’s a nice location, not so bushy as Riverbend Den, but there are still many bushes and the tall grass is going to be a problem.  Except it shouldn’t be for long; the migration has finally arrived!  It is in Fig Tree, and headed toward Talek West territory.  I was never able to intimately appreciate the breadth of the migration last year since we switched camps at about the same time the wildebeest moved from one to the other.  The plains are covered with them – they stretch like ants, tiny bushes dotting to the horizon, slowing our driving as they buck across the road.  It’s incredible, the change immense.  Truly a wonder of our world.

I am constantly reminded of how much I love it here.  On the morning of the 27^th, the hyenas were still out and active in the daylight.  Fig Tree reminds me of Serena in its wildness, and sitting there watching the cubs and adults interact in the cloudy, breezy early morning massaged my senses, quieting my overactive brain so that I could live fully in the moment.  I knew right then there was nowhere I’d rather be in the world, nothing I would change about that moment.  Such contentment I think is rare for any, man or beast, and I am immensely grateful for each time I am blessed enough to hold it.

That same morning we had to stop and let the car cool off a bit.  As Benson took the opportunity to give Charlie a quick car lesson beneath the hood, I took the opportunity to lay back in the tall grass and look up at the clearing sky, stretching for miles with perfect little clouds, turning my head to see a male impala looking curiously at me meters and meters away, turning it the other to watch a little white butterfly gracing the air with its weightless patterns.  Happy.  That’s all I can say.

The 28^th brought the need for a break.  After a somewhat sad morning in which we saw a group of sorry zebras, one with a huge skin-hanging wound and another with a tumor the size of a basketball bouncing at its side, it was time for some popcorn and a movie.  We were also feeling slightly depressed given most of the cubs are leaving the nest, graduating and ending up kilometers from where we could before be sure to find them, cuddled up or playing or staring curiously up at us close enough to touch.  Now, introduced to a wide world of dangers, they are more likely to run from us than anything else.  Even Rebmann.  They will habituate again, but their comfort will never return to where it was.  We gathered around the lab tent table, three huge bowls of popcorn, and plugged The Help into a laptop attached to a solar battery.  Such a wonderful movie.  Normally I can’t stand watching movies during the day, especially here, but it was just what the doctor ordered.  Before we settled down, I found the most amazing bug on the way to the choo.  It had the head of a bumblebee and was the same size, but its body and wings were like those of a fly.  The wings were an iridescent blue, and orange fuzz coated just the front third of the thorax, the rest a deep black.  I coaxed it onto my finger and took it to show the others.  I love hanging around the people here, because they were every bit as excited as I was over this strange specimen, cute eyes and antennas of a bee staring up at us, no stinger to worry after.  I released it where I found it, glad that it needed to be coaxed back off my finger with even more persuasion necessary than when I picked it up.  The small creatures here fill in the cracks of a place already teeming with life.  They are gorgeous.  For another instance, instead of the normal toads, frogs have been about recently.  There was one that resembled a pickerel frog, legs delicately painted in alternating shades of green, illuminated in the light of my headlamp as I brushed my teeth before bed the other night.

The adult and subadult hyenas assisted in lifting our spirits the same day by laying in puddles on the main road.  We drove around the bend to find five plopped down in the way of everything, others’ heads poking up everywhere in the surrounding grass.  Cuuuuute!  Like a wild breed of round-eared lovable dogs (not to be confused as being more closely related to dogs than cats; not so!).