21:23, 4 October, 2012

We are attempting to re-chart the Prozac clan, a clan that has been somewhat neglected the past few years due to distance.  It’s a difficult task; perhaps the most difficult part for me is rolling out of bed half an hour earlier than normal, but then of course there’s the cost of diesel, driving through Intrepid and Stinky and Woe Crossings (two of which go right through the river, so that hippos stare at us like we are idiots as our car goes splashing through the water), and the bushes, hills, and tall grass that make tracking exceptionally difficult.  But now that the migration has come, the latter issue has been mostly removed.  And a carcass of one of those helpful wildebeest introduced me to some excellent individuals on one of our latest Prozac ventures.

Grigsby.  I fell so in love with the light-colored faintly-spotted cub named Grigsby.  What a butterball!  When his back faced us, his sides bulged between his little legs.  Grigsby is such a polite little hyena; he continually head-bobbed to his superiors, and the only thing that tempted him to try their patience was the juicy wildebeest that he obviously couldn’t get enough of.  But he couldn’t compete with Hocus Pocus and Hunt for the food:  why?  Because their mother Gettysburg was there.  I also really love Getty.  She is the most attentive hyena I have ever met, with perfectly defined t1 looks.  Any time Grigsby would come to try and feed when her cubs were feeding, she would give him the look; even as a human I knew exactly what that look meant.  But she didn’t feel the need to t2 lunge – all she had to do was look at Grigsby with her ears forward, eyes intent, maybe take a step toward him. He would immediately head-bob, ears-back submissive posture his way away from the food.  Getty kept him in his place, but it was in a very endearing way.  I am beginning to love maternal interventions, which was the context for Getty’s aggressions.  A maternal intervention is just as it sounds: a mother intervenes for her cubs when they are being picked on or someone is trying to share their food.  Getty might not have been hungry, but she sure as heck was going to make sure her little ones got their fill.  She stood guard by the carcass that morning until Hocus Pocus and Hunt were finished – a long time. (Any time she would wander off a few meters to keep one of the two present males, Brisbane and Nairobi, at bay, Grigsby was sure to wander in and sneak a couple bites, something he needs to perfect as he was frequently caught in the gaze of Getty’s fabulous t1 look when she would turn around to find him there.)

Benson and I may have seen a fair few hyenas that morning, but I am still dying to meet Al Gore and her cub Alfred Russel Wallace, because who couldn’t love a cub named Alfred Russel Wallace?  It’s somehow such an amazingly fitting name for a hyena cub. 

8:22, Friday, 5 October, 2012

On the way back from Prozac that same morning, we found the Fig Tree clan!!!  Where did we find them?  In Prozac territory!  Apparently the boundary needs to be redrawn past Topi Swamp, the current marker.  The Fig hyenas weren’t much past it, maybe 500 meters or so, but they were definitely past it.  Most all of our usual adults were there, sacked out in the road as though children grown impatient of their hiding place in a game of hide-and-seek.   Potter, Carol Doda, Nikk, Einstein, ET, Tudor, Worf, Santiago, annnnnnd...SNAGGLETOOTH!  It was my first time seeing Snaggletooth, the high-ranking individual whose name is derived from the tooth that pokes crooked out of her mouth.  Mom and Dad, I tried hard to think of a better adjective, I swear, but there really isn’t one – Snaggletooth looks badass.  (It’s from hanging around all those sailor mouths at Michigan State – as Pete Motz would say, seven years of parochial school down the drain.)  Further along, Lu, Illuminaughty, and Fort Worth came loping in.  They must have been afraid of not being counted, being our only common adults not present in the road. 

I wish Claire could be counted among our common adults.  Charlie and I saw Moma wandering alone kilometers from where the others are hanging out, desperately chewing on an old wildebeest carcass.  We have come to realize that Smithsonian, her sibling, is gone.  I cannot reasonably convince myself that Claire is still alive.  But we are rooting for Moma, much as we rooted for Foxtrot.  Speaking of Foxtrot – SHE IS ALIVE!!!!  We all thought her dead, and then Wilson (who has returned from his wedding and is being trained as a research assistant) and I found her two mornings ago.  Her growth has been severely stunted – she is much smaller than the other cubs her age: small, thin, and limping, but she is alive, that tough little girl!  I had to hide my welling eyes – the moment I was videotaping this mystery cub and realized who it was: just unbelievable.

We have been seeing so much cool wildlife out on obs.  Three nights ago we saw a striped weasel!  Who even knew there were striped weasels out here?  At first we thought it was a baby white-tailed mongoose, but as if someone wanted to be sure we got the right carnivore for the count, a white-tailed mongoose materialized out of nowhere by the weasel.  Confirmation?  I think not.  The weasel’s tail stood straight up and the hairs on either side of the slender bone jutted out like the barbs of a feather.  It squeaked and spit and jumped to the side, causing Wilson to shout, “It’s a striped weasel!”  That made more sense given the long black-and-white stripes down its back.  Amazing!

It must be calling all unknown carnivores week, because the next night we saw a fuzzy black mongoose-like animal scuttling about the plain.  I made poor Wilson follow it until we could shine it long enough to get a good look at it, but we still don’t know what it was.  I looked in the African Mammals textbook that lives on the bookshelf in the lab tent, but none of the mongooses were described as being completely black.  Perhaps it was a different morph of a rarer mongoose, like the yellow or Egyptian mongeese?  Or maybe I should check with Julia and Charlie to see what a water mongoose looks like.  Wilson suggested a civet, but they surely aren’t described as all black.  It’s exciting to think there are animals out here we in Fisi Camp have yet to discover!  Species everywhere, and that equates to Heaven for someone like me.

A mildly rainy night shortly after I returned from Nairobi, Benson, Julia, Charlie and I were all packed into the cruiser when we happened upon four jackal pups!  They weren’t extremely small, but I had been dying to see young jackals.  The pups were in the bushes near Croton Edge Den, their two monogamous parents trotting off, likely to find some tasty grass rats.  The young ones just sat there with their big ears perked, watching us from beneath a croton bush.  Sitting at the den ten minutes later, no hyenas about, and a porcupine runs right through our headlights!  As if seeing a porcupine wasn’t awesome enough alone, Benson absolutely loves porcupines.  His delight could have put a smile on the grim reaper.  “Small walking forest!” he laughed up a storm.  We saw another one near Paul’s Tree almost back to camp (the rain must get them moving), and Benson wouldn’t let it out of the maglight’s sight.  I cannot blame him for even a second – our world is honestly too amazing to be real.  To think a creature like a porcupine exists!

Charlie and I happened upon an owl in broad daylight a week or so ago, hunkered down in the grass.  We didn’t see it until we were right upon it, and I was sure it would fly, but it just sat there a couple meters away, staring at us with its enormous slow-blinking eyes.  I got a great picture, and although it thought about it once, it didn’t fly away.  Even as we drove off it just sat there, so gorgeous, a size somewhere between the screech and barn owls at home.  Right there, right in the grass!  I can’t get over it.

To finish my “edge animals” stories is something very small but equally amazing.  On obs with Dave and Julia, and I look down to see a stick bug making its way across the ID book, six thread legs unable to go in one direction as it fell about like the leaf of a stalk of red oat grass in the wind.  My fascination turned to constant worry that I would crush it as it willowed about, and I asked Julia to pull over so I could release it.  But even that was difficult, and it flew from my hand before I reached the side of the road.  Luckily I think I was close enough that it should have landed in the grass it was made to imitate.