20:53, Saturday, 8 September, 2012

We drove to Prozac territory earlier than normal on the evening of the 19^th to try and view a wildebeest crossing over the Mara River.  While Benson, Charlie, Eli and Amyaal left at 4 in the morning to see it earlier in the day (and saw an aardvark!!!  I still don’t think they realize what an insanely rare privilege that is), Michelle, Wilson and I went later.  We were too late for any actual crossings, but what we saw was unreal. Last summer I never saw this stage of the crossing.    Wildebeest and zebra carcasses were piled on the banks, floating atop or being swept downriver. Vultures formed great twisting tornadoes up into the sky, whirling from one side of the river to the other.  Some vultures perched atop the floating carcasses, nibbling at bits until an enormous crocodile would come swimming up and scare it off.  I saw what must be the world’s most gargantuan crocodile lying on the bank.  This thing had to be at least 18 feet from head to tail, and it was full to bursting with the migration.  A zebra carcass rocked to and fro as another croc took pieces out of it; we would see its great head surface above the water as it threw the meat up for itself to catch before submerging again.  Very soon we noticed that this zebra had a fetus falling out of its belly.  Fetuses must be extra tasty, because that crocodile bypassed the rest of the zebra and went to great lengths to wrench the fetus out.  Pretty soon the whole zebra lodged free and started floating downstream, where three different crocodiles met it and started eating it in the same manner. 

At one of the crossing sights, four exhausted juvenile wildebeest couldn’t find the strength to climb the bank.  They stood in a huddle with their heads low.  Another wandered by the water, looking confused.  An adult in the pile was still alive, slowly dying.  It was like witnessing the aftermath of a great war.  And through all of this, I look over at Michelle, and what does she do?  She shows me a picture she’s just taken of the fly sitting on her window!  I guess no one can say we don’t appreciate the small stuff.

We had an interesting night driving about in the tall grass and dark attempting to ID the three Prozac hyenas we saw, one of which was the female Oscar.  On the drive back, which seemed to take ages, we all became rather loopy with tiredness.  Michelle and I sounded like a couple of drunkards digging the dinner left for us out of the kitchen tent, eating it like a couple of our giggling hyenas before falling over ourselves on the way to the tent.  It’s a wonder we didn’t wake the whole camp up! 

21:13, Sunday, 9 September, 2012

The following evening I went out on obs with Benson, Eli, and Amyaal.  We found two wildebeest carcasses about 100 meters apart, and pretty soon the hyenas were in a mass of superhyena whose hyena pieces would occasionally jump  off at the sides as a result of some inward aggression or submission.  It was near impossible to transcribe, but was it ever good to see everyone!  Among the more interesting interactions, Burger continuously aggressed on Scrabble.  And when I say continuously, I mean I wrote “BRGR t2 lunge (food) SBL, bo” (bo = back off) probably 20 times, no exaggeration.  Burger is one of the cubs who was nursing from two mothers, Centaur and Alfredo.  Centaur hasn’t been seen since I first came; we suspect she is dead (possibly killed by a herder since Dave saw her chasing a cow earlier this year).  Centaur was ranked above Scrabble, so it would make sense for Burger to be her cub; Alfredo, on the other hand, is ranked below Scrabble.  What interests me is that hyenas learn their rank, so  Burger must have learned her rank while fairly little, watching Centaur interact with clan members while still alive, then somehow knowing to carry that over as her rightful rank.  We still see her nursing from Alfredo, and it fascinates me that she wouldn’t adopt Alfredo’s rank even after all this time.  I wonder if she somehow knows Alfredo is not her mother?  Or maybe Alfredo is her mother, which would make the picture even more complicated.  Only genetics will tell for sure.

Then, another interesting tidbit, low-ranking Alice was allowed to feed next to Pan, with no aggression whatsoever!  This was before the majority of the hyenas arrived.  A few weeks prior we had seen Alice aggress upon Ted, a considerably higher ranker.  If two of us hadn’t seen it exactly as it was, we wouldn’t have believed it.  And here was more evidence that just maybe, somehow, Alice is making a rise.  Maybe they are both fluke occurrences, but it excites me to think my Alice might be going places!

Speaking of Alice, I thought Rebmann was Penne because she has grown SO BIG.  You leave for 2 weeks and everyone shoots up like those grow-em whatevers you put in the bathtub.  Reading over my old notes from June, I feel like an empty-nesting parent; twenty or so cubs, the whole crew, used to be at Riverbend Den every morning and evening.  Now everyone is everywhere as graduated subadults, awaiting their photos to be moved from the “cub” to the “sub” section.

We saw Alien 403 at the carcasses that night, third sighting and interacting, so it was time to give him a name.  We let the Israelis name him, so he is now Jerusalem.  Welcome to the clan, Jerusalem!  He is a gorgeous hyena, that’s for sure. 

Also out that night: spring hares, everywhere!  We caught them in our maglights a few times, and got some great views of the boing-boings.  They are one of those animals that you just can’t see enough times and could watch forever, therefore making every sighting blog-worthy (perhaps to the despair of the reader).

Returned home to find Kelsey and Verna at the dinner table!  It was sure good to see them after having been gone in Serena for so long.  Kelsey loves those avocados, licking every last morsel off of my fingers. 

On the afternoon of Tuesday the 21^st we went to Fig Tree Lodge to play poker with the balloon pilots.  Ray, the head poker pilot, is very serious about the game.  I’m not so good at poker, and was sweating bullets every time I attempt to bluff – let’s just say I was not inspire Lady Gaga’s songwriter.  Three thousand shillings down the drain (approximately 83 shillings to the dollar). Still I had fun, although Michelle opted to sun herself by the lodge pool so I was left alone with Charlie and a gaggle of crude sailor-mouthed old men.  Yet I like them, and I WILL be beating them next time.

Charlie and I went to Fig Tree territory once poker was over with.  We have decided that Mr. Darcy is perhaps the sweetest cub ever; she is always grooming anyone and everyone.  This evening she was giving an especially tender bath to the male Nikk, who was sacked out near the den.  Pretty soon two other cubs came over and started grooming him, until he looked most uncomfortable but couldn’t do anything since he is lower-ranking than all of them.  When he finally attempted to get away, the three cubs would have none of it, and bristle-tail t1 looked him back into a lying position, where they again started to vigorously groom him.

The night ended in chaos as hyenas arrived from every which-way in the dark.  Suddenly everyone looked like Nikk for some reason, and Charlie made fun of me for having told him that four different hyenas should be called “Nikk?” in the notes.  Not even the stars, surrounding us in every direction save for down, could give us any hint as to who was who.  It’s the moon we were needing, and for all we know Nikk could have budded three clones then and there.