SEPTEMBER! What on earth?!

The good news is that I’m in Nairobi, and I can actually write! I will have to refer heavily to my notes to remember what I have wanted to write about for so long.

When I came back from Serena, one of the world’s greatest wonders stretched out before me as far as the eye could see.  I thought I had seen the migration; I was so wrong.  The plains were covered.  Imagine dividing the entire territory I have been researching into a grid of squares of side 1 meter.  Then put a grazing wildebeest into each square; they were so perfectly spaced! I couldn’t believe it!  Granted, wayward ones here and there galloped about bucking out excess life. Wildebeest grunts became the staggered drum beat of the savanna.

Not only did the wildebeest permeate our research site.  A couple mornings later we took a rest, and I woke up to very close sounding grunts.  Excited, I quickly threw on some clothes and walked beyond the brush. The wildebeest had spread right alongside camp, like the fingers of an unstoppable river.  I crept as close as I could before one finally saw me.  The amazing thing was that only one of them saw me, and it didn’t even seem that alarmed, but it must have communicated somehow because seconds later the whole herd was thundering away.  Talk about feeling influential!  Further along in the day I wouldn’t even have to leave my tent to see them.  Right beyond the brush they grunted and grazed away, one of them attempting to wander into the bush before becoming entangled and thinking the better of it.

Once the wildebeest moved on, I truthfully had trouble orienting myself, even after having driven the area for some three odd months.  Where once the grass had been so long, now it was worlds shorter, eaten away by the herds.  I knew it would happen, but it’s something else altogether to witness the change.  Seemingly overnight the landscape had been dramatically reformed.  Our hyenas are much easier to find now!  Guess we have the gnu to thank for that.

Our work has been confounded by the arrival of about seven alien males all at once.  We were dumbfounded until Kay told us this is a common occurrence during the migration.  My first night back I spent probably half an hour trying to ID a couple of hyenas, dismaying that apparently I had forgotten spot patterns while away.  Turns out they were hyenas I had never seen; I was terribly relieved!  We now have Jerusalem (Amyaal and Eli picked that name), a potential Detroit, and some others waiting for their third sighting before being inducted permanently into our ID book and the master list with a name.

My second morning back we found a beautiful female cheetah in Fig Tree.  She sat looking about her, tail twitching.  I wonder how many such cheetahs were made invisible by the long grass prior to the full onset of the migration.  The coat pattern begotten her by evolution made her blend in even amidst the shorter grass.

That same morning we had the delight of witnessing little Karen trying to sort out her rank.  As the female Einstein approached her at the hyenas’ new den (now named “Cub the Place” after a pub called “Club the Place” in Talek), she tentatively head bobbed.  But perhaps she had recently witnessed her mother Lu aggress on Einstein, because all at once (perhaps with a surge of courage, if I may say animals experience courage as a scientist) she bristle tail t2 lunged at Einstein.  When Einstein became submissive, she must have felt further empowered, and did it again and again.  Our little girl discovering the amazing hold that rank has on hyena society.  Good for her, maybe not so good for Einstein.  But Einstein dutifully followed the rules.

The bushbabies came to dinner at night, and I was overjoyed to see them!  Karma and Vladimir’s (newly named) presence at the table was not so welcome by all.  Michelle had at least one thing in common with Eli; he was against feeding the babies, something Charlie had communicated to me.  I promised Charlie I wouldn’t be shy about reinstating their invite.  Eli didn’t know I knew of his viewpoint, and I very naughtily offered him some of my bread to feed them, a feigned innocent “Would you like to try?”.  That got the argument rolling, slightly heated before returning to friendly.  In the end the babies got as much of my food as ever, and Eli chuckled when I admonished them for going near him, “You won’t get any food from that side of the table!”  I fully understand the argument that it’s important not to make wild animals helpless and dependent on humans, but I can’t see any harm in preserving our interactions with the bushbabies and genets.  People are not meant to have no interaction with wild animals, and though I am not normally an advocate of food being involved in such interactions, I can’t condemn what has afforded our completely safe and ongoing relationship with the bushbabies and genets, one of the most special things I have ever experienced.  I think anyone would be hard pressed to find any real harm or danger in the matter.

A whole troop of banded mongooses came twiddling through by my camp on the 19^th.  Haven’t seen baboons and vervets for a while, but now I have wildebeest and mongooses!  If Mamba Mia is still around, she had best be careful.