Little black cubs!

Great south morning today, the south hyenas now have three dens, all of which are very active in a triangle about 400 to 500m away from each other. When at Boone D we can see both Monster den and FML den and all the hyenas at each respective den. Just Bellagio, Rasta, and Biscuit at FML but Biscuit was being totally adorable as usual. Next we went and checked out Monster den where we’ve been seeing clovis and there was a new hyena there! Not only was Clovis and Brophy chilling out by the den (brophy does not have cubs but she’s been hanging around) but Trumain was also there! Have not seen her since July I think at a carcass. Onekama, a male, was hanging out and Clovis and Brophy ran away from the den to chase him off and then Trumain sticks her head in a hole and PULLS OUT A TINY LITTLE BLACK CUB and then plunks him down into a hole a few feet away. Unfortunately his face was titled away from us so I couldn’t see if he had white eyebrows or white rings. But I would imagine he was pretty young. Also unfortunately this hole happened to be Clovis’ hole so when Clovis came back and sat down in the hole on top of Trumain, Trumain got really upset and start squealing and def growling but of course since Trumain is the lowest ranking adult female and Clovis the second highest that wasn’t happening. Dave had just started getting some Taj points south of Monster den so we drove over there next and found another 6 hyenas including Java, the alpha, Taj, Whiz, Komo, Kneesocks and a male Toledo. We saw a torn phallus on Kneesocks the other day which is kind of crazy because she is one of the old females that we call the ‘golden girls’ and has never been seen to have cubs while the hyena lab has been studying them. Maybe she always has still borns? I guess we’ll watch out and see if she has a live cub this time! We saw Komo’s baby at FML den so we’re not sure if she’s moved her baby over to Boone den or if she was just chilling there with her mom. Last we knew Java also had her baby at FML but maybe with Taj hanging out here Java and Komo both decided to move to Boone den. Whiz also had a torn phallus but this would be her first litter so it is not likely that they survived. This is Trumain’s second litter so we’re keeping our fingers crossed and thinking of dog breed names for her baby! Komo’s lineage is going to be spaceships and the cub that we saw head poke is going to be named Death Star. Drove around the rest of the territory and heard a few beeps from slinky but saw no one else, seems like this triangle of three dens is where EVERYONE is hanging out. 

Dave in camp!

Dave is back in camp! Picked up Emily a little less than a week ago and made it back to camp. After many dry days its finally rainy again but we still made it out for obs this morning. Its thanksgiving next week so we drove all the to talek to get Dave so that we could do a thanksgiving celebration with the talek folks. The road to talek has gotten horrible so it was slow going but we made it in time for talek evening obs which ended up being just a sundowner because it was already starting to rain by the time we left! Drank lots of wine (a record for me I think) and had lots of fun goofing around on top of this hill doing cartwheels etc. Had a big dinner celebration and Julie made a really really good pie that tasted just like pumpkin pie even though it was made with butternut squash. Next morning we went to the circumcision ceremony party for Lusingo’s (one of talek’s askaris) son. The actual circumcision was very early in the morning but the party went on all afternoon. We showed up and Wilson showed us around the manyatta and then we were invited inside one of the huts for lunch. Super delicious mashed potatoes, chapatti, fried cabbage, katchumbari, and fried goat. Wasn’t a fan of the fried goat but fried cabbage is sooo good. And soda of course! Dave brought me back the 2TB hard drive I ordered and a lens cap for my camera. So now I finally have space to take as many photos and HD video as I want! He also brought back some more camp supplies and US candy.. which is very bad. Trying to resist the urge to eat any of that candy. Anyway seeing the manyatta was really cool, the boma the cows and goats were in and all the different huts. A new hut was in the process of going up so it was really cool to see how that happens. Lots of dogs and puppies and little kids running around. I wore my maasai dress for the first time and it was super cool though apparently it was somewhat fancy for the occasion. Before we left we were given gifts of necklaces and bracelets… eeep embarrassing. But just like in India as white people we are special guests. Julie french-braided my hair so now I’ve decided to French braid it every day until I get really good at French braiding it. It’s just barely long enough for it so a few strands still fall out.. but still really cool. Braids! I haven’t had a braid since middle school.

Dave did his first north loop this morning while Emily and I went to south. We got somewhat stuck in the mud but I was able to coach Emily on what to do and she got us out! Some of the tracks were very slippery but nothing too bad, we even got south 1 prey transect completed! 

November 4th Lion Ambush

Amazing morning today- saw three lions take down three wildebeest in a manner of minutes. We first saw the lions just a few minutes after telling a tour car that we had seen “hakuna simba” this morning. It was the two subadult males and what we think is their sister, possibly this is Arya, Bran, and Rickon. The males look maybe two years old, just getting scruff around their necks. They were all looking extremely skinny and were meandering on towards the river. We kept going and noticed a lot of dust plumes coming up from across the river. We haven’t had any good rain since those rainy weeks in September and the dust has gotten absolutely horrendous. As we drive closer we realize that some wildebeest are just about to cross the river! It’s very late in the season for a crossing but there have still been a lot of wildebeest and zebra around so perhaps not too unusual. Wes saw a crossing in December when he first got out here last year. The lions that we’d just driven away from are walking this way and we quickly try and position ourselves to watch what they do. All three sneak into the longer grass and take up points where they can watch the wildebeest. 

At first it looks as if the wildebeest have psyched themselves out and are going to turn around but then a few start to cross and suddenly the whole herd and swimming across. The lions are right there on the bank when the wildebeest start to climb up this side! Dripping wet and lowing (with zebras kwakwaing) first one of the submales dives in and appears to take down a wildebeest just on the bank before dispearing below the edge. Next the female who has been waiting on the left side tears after a wildebeest and it runs into the longer grass where she pulls it down. Then, seconds after, the second male runs at an adult wildebeest and grabs its neck just in front of us. Within a minute he has pulled it to the ground. Three lions and three wildebeest!! The two subadult males actually chase a few more wildebeest as the crossing finishes up before standing still, panting and out of breath. The female remained with her kill, keeping a bite on it until it is 100% dead. Totally wild!! The wildebeest were freaking out, having to cross the river with hungry lions waiting for them on the other side.

Anyway, lots has happened since I last journaled. Amanda got bitten by a dog a few days after she got back to the mara (after a Nairobi trip filled with lots of car problems). It was one of the sniffing dogs that works at the gates and the bridge. Apparently it had gotten sick a week ago and the drugs they had put it on had changed its behavior and it became way more aggressive with anyone but its handler. The day before it had bitten a small child so they’d moved it to the other gate away from the bridge. When Amanda got out of her car to say hi to the handler the dog lunged and bit away part of her lip. She’s been in Nairobi ever since but apparently there are great plastic surgeons and they were able to sew her lip back up.

The cruiser is finally fixed and I think for good this time. Laragin came out and did some more work on it and he finally admitted that there was probably an alternator or electrical problem that is deeper than just battery or starter problems. He cleaned the alternator and charged the battery which kept the car going until Halloween before it died again. So finally he went through and checked all the current and found that there is not sufficient electrical voltage going to the battery. After two nights of working he ordered a new voltage regulator and got an electrician “ja-wire” to come out and take a look at the cruiser. After replacing the voltage regulator, cleaning the alternator, and redoing half the wiring the cruiser charged the battery from dead to full! No boost-charging, car charged the battery on its own which makes me think we’re good to go for real this time.

However the maruti now has a broken spring leaf, we were driving it out and it snapped going over a few ruts. A few weeks ago the mechanics said that the spring leaves were wearing out so this wasn’t too surprising but seeing as both camps were almost out of camp cash (and personal cash) this was just one more thing. So for a day we had no car until the cruiser got fixed. However having the evening off was nice because we got to watch a solar eclipse on the evening of nov. 3^rd.

Halloween was fun though- we sprayed painted t-shirts and went up to the lodge for drinks where we bumped into Daniel, the balloon pilot, and his wife Joyce. They joined us a little later and we chilled out with Allan, a guide in training, at the bar as well.

Still no sign of George but we did see LogC this morning, but that only made us more worried about LogC. She was wandering behind Sherman and Hooker looked submissive and like she didn’t know what to do with herself. Hooker and Sherman led the way the whole time and LogC actually went ears back and did some submissive postures and head bobbing to them which is totally crazy. We didn’t see Waffles in her natal den either so we were thinking either Waffles died or Sherman has overthrown waffles and taken over or George is dead and LogC is just so depressed that she is acting submissive to these two. Any of those options is crazy but I really hope little George isn’t dead! LogC has been such a good mom and George was getting big and strong so quickly. There’s been a million lions around though so I don’t know.

Biscuit on the other hand I’m already worried about. That cub is way too bold and crazy for her own good and though George was always safe and careful and LogC was always keeping a watchful eye on him Biscuit is a little cub that is out of control. Bellagio usually looks so exhausted that when she IS there she is fast asleep and Biscuit is doing whatever she feels like. Biscuit was playing and greeting with Cruz the other night, running as far as 10m away from the den following BLG (who was trying to leave) and other cubs. She was play romping with Sula and Star who are both about a year old now and actually holding her own with play bites and running around. She was chewing on Marten’s collar the other night and I don’t doubt her ability to damage that thing. Bellagio only once tried to get Biscuit to go back to the den but it was when Biscuit was not being all that crazy and the moment Bellagio let go of her she was off running around again. I haven’t even seen Higgs or George (who are both waaaay older) being anywhere near this bold. Komo is still hogging the den hole but I did see a torn phallus on Whiz so maybe we’ll see a few more babies soon! Java’s points were clustering some in the field across from the den so maybe Java has some babies in a natal den too.

Submitted my NSF yesterday which feels great, but still waiting on Carrie’s reference letter. So won’t feel totally relaxed until everything is all in and official. Reference letter deadline is not until the 14^th. Now just helping Zoe with hers!! 

Car troubles.

Laragin boost charged the battery so the cruiser is going again- we’ll see how long that lasts! He admitted he didn’t really know why the cruiser has gone through three new batteries in one year so I think that the cruiser will be going to Nairobi on the next trip. Didn’t tell you about all the car troubles we had two nights ago! Cruiser died at south den, so the brand new battery I bought in Nairobi lasted all of three weeks. Laragin was out of town and Langat couldn’t find a vehicle so it wasn’t until 9 that we got a jump start from the balloon crew. Chelle was out of town but she gave me Daniel’s number and he asked his balloon crew to come and resuce us. Jump works great gets the car going and everything is fine until about ten minutes later when the car dies because it has run out of gas. Which was weird because we had over a quarter tank when we’d left for obs and previously that has been more than enough diesel fuel to get us through two obs sessions. So by 10 we get a second rescue and this time we leave the cruiser out in the bush and get a lift back to camp. Almost back to camp we ran into Moses and Jorgi who had attempted to drive the maruti out to get us! Neither of them really knows how to drive so getting the maruti that far was quite a feat. Got to bed by 10:30. Long night! Next morning we take the maruti up to the lodge for diesel thinking that all we have to do is fill up the tank and then jump it and we’re golden. Nope. Jumping it nor push starting it works. Langat is busy with morning work at the conservancy and can’t come out and help us. Finally a photographer with a beefy land rover pulled me back to the conservancy where Langat and Laragin (just returned) tell us that the engine was full of air from it being empty and us trying to jump it plus a leak in the fuelline causing the tank to empty much more quickly. So it wasn’t just us being stupid wazungu girls running out of gas and not knowing how to properly jump a car! Battery still wouldn’t charge though so Laragin took the battery and did a slow charge on it and since then the car has been starting fine but we’ll see how long the battery lasts in this car before its drained again. Must be an alternator problem or else some other thing that is causing the batteries to drain fast.

Saw T-Rex again this morning and collected poop from her! Seems like she’s back for good now which is great and Emily thought she saw nipples so maybe she’s got some little cubbies somewhere! Waffles is on a natal den now which is super exciting, she’s using Biscuits n’ Gravy den and we almost didn’t see her she was sacked out so deep inside. No sign of George there but hopefully once more cubs start being born he’ll show up at the den scene. Saw some bat-eared fox kits last night trying to nurse from their mom who was standing up. Super adorable standing on their little back legs with their front paws wind milling in the air as they tried to balance. Waaay too cute. Cuteness overload.

Dinner and drinks with Amanda last night and had a good time talking about nairobi troubles, car problems, Emily’s malaria (now fully gone) and talking with Gamey about talking to kenyan guys and getting hit on and about guys being waaay too forward. Decided that bare shoulders is less of a big deal than thighs since skirts are the norm here and tight tops are not unusual. 

Hyenas LOVE water.

Ahh almost the end of October! My NSF is coming along really well though. Had a beautiful leopard sighting last night (two in one week!!) while we were driving back to camp from North territory. Just sitting in the road when we drove up and we waited while it walked directly in front of our car and then disappeared into a thicket. Got an ID shot!

This morning happy zebra was having a PARTY at Egyptian goose watering hole. Cosby (low-ranking adult female) and Jollyroger (cub) were going non-stop play fighting in the deeper water. At first many of the hyenas were play romping in the shallow water but Cosby was wading around in the deeper water and dunking her head under and clearly just enjoying it. Finally J-Rog went and joined her and she would grab her and dunk her under water and I could hear J-rog snorting water out of her nose but she just kept coming back for more! Clearly they don’t mind getting water in the eyes, ears, and noses. However, not ALL the hyenas were enjoying the water. Higgs (HZ’s youngest cub) was too little to feel confident going into the water but he was having fun play time with Silk, an adult female. Eremet (J-Rog’s subadult aunt) also seemed to have some distaste for getting her feet wet. She didn’t go into water more than three inches deep and actually tried to balance on some small rocks and mounds in order to avoid having her feet in the water. There aren’t really enough words to explain how awesome and adorable it was watching the soaking wet hyenas spatter and run around so I took a few videos.

Earlier cosby had also been going totally nuts with the cubs tearing around as fast as she could run chasing and being chased by cubs. Some zebras hanging around seemed like they wanted to come and get a drink but the hyenas were hogging the water hole and at one point the cubs thought it would be really funny to chase them away. Later on when the cubs were romping near the zebras again the zebras did not let themselves be so easily spooked and one of the cubs even got chased by one the zebras- payback! 

See my video and photos at msuhyenas.blogspot.com.

Paste collection, baby jackals, alien males, and a dead baby elephant.

All the happy zebra hyenas were at Egyptian Goose watering hole this morning. So much fun to see all these hyenas splashing and play romping in the water. No sign of Higgs at that den he and his mother Ojibway were at last time unfortunately. We also finally collected some paste! There were four hyenas repeatedly pasting over a stalk that was very easy to see and pick out so we made a point to come back and cut it. There is a grad student studying the bacterial colonies in paste. I only collected paste for the first time in august so now I feel like a productive RA getting paste! And it was a really good stalk- I could see and smell the paste on it so we were positive that it was the correct stalk. Later on while driving around we saw three baby jackals, so adorable! They were very shy and disappeared into the den hole after we showed up but I did snap one photo!!

Saw another alien male today, gave him the number AL1023, he was very frustrating because all his spots looked insanely familiar, just bits from many hyenas I think ,so Emily and I spent an hour pouring overbooks but he didn’t quite fit anyone in particular. One hyenas butt, another’s shoulder, etc. He was all alone and not interacting with anyone so we’ll see if he sticks around. He has really good bold spots so it’d be nice if he did. Still no sign of what north is up to!

There was a dead baby elephant on the road the other day, I thought it looked close to a month old and Emily and I were worried it had been hit by a car. The speeding seems to really be a problem in the park, both for killing animals and for car accidents. The well maintained roads here are great but in some ways I think the bad roads are better for the animals, though they just found a dead hyena in talek the other day hit by a car so maybe not. I think speed bumps could be really beneficial though for this half of the park. Later on we learned that this elephant had been witnessed being born in the road and was either stillborn or had died shortly after birth. 

Parties and immigrant males.

Happy zebra had a party last night but we were not invited. Not many hyenas at Rumpy Culvert where they’ve been hanging out but we did find Higgs at what looks like a den complex with his mom. Hopefully they keep hanging out here and we can make it a den landmark! It was in the middle of a flat smooth plain with very very short grass in what was a burned area last year, perfect den for doing obs. Later when we were chilling with Clay (daughter of the alpha Pike and my favorite cub), Ando, and Dara and just as it was getting too dark to see they loped off into the distance but not before Clay left us a poop present to pick up. By the time were finished collecting poop they were out of sight. We drove in the direction they ran for a little ways but hit a rock field. As we were driving back to the road we saw another FOUR hyenas all loping off that way. Damn! Something fun happening past the rock field, always frustrating to be driving back to camp when you know the hyenas are doing something cool.

On another note the unIDmale I saw in HZ the other day is definitely an immigrant. Can’t decide whether or not to give him an interaction tick (we give them three ticks before counting them as part of the clan since so many males just pass through) since he only loped by these hyenas and didn’t really chill out at all except when he was at 200m. But, turns out he’s not actually an unID. He’s Siracha, one of Clovis’ (south clan’s retired matriarch) cubs that hasn’t been seen since December of last year. Missing for ten months! In south’s book his ID photos are of him as a young fluffy 2 year old subadult. Now he looks completely adult and full grown- crazy! When we see a new male to a clan we have to go through all the photos of missing and dead animals to make sure it’s not just someone we haven’t seen in a while. Next we go through the photos of hyenas in the other two clans to make sure it’s not someone that’s been missing in those clans. Finally when we don’t match spots with anyone we give them an alien number and write them on the board under an alien males list for each clan where we keep track of their number of interactions. Usually it’s a quick flip through the books, when young males immigrate we usually never see them again. I was expecting to give this guy an alien number when I was flipping through south subs not really expecting to even pause but I’d never seen Sriracha before so I stopped to double check spots on him (most of the other south subs I could rule out right away from memory). Crazily enough the spots starting matching- every single one. Often while flipping through the books there will be one or two hyenas with a few similar spots but by the time I pulled up the photo of this hyena’s other side and BOTH sides starting matching I started to feel excited! This was a hyena we knew!! Could it really be?? I had Emily double check my spot matching job and it was confirmed, this immigrant male in Happy Zebra was Clovis’ kid Sriracha.

The life of a male hyena must be so crazy. To grow up in your mother’s clan and spend two to five years there, and while there to have a rank above and below other animals, to visit the den and play with your little brothers and sisters until the day comes that you can’t stay in that clan anymore. Something drives you to leave and then you’re out all alone in the world for over a year or many years or your whole life not belonging to any clan and having no friends or family. It’s so sad to think about this hyena standing, still alert watching some cubs playing out in the distance, cubs that are a part of some family that you’re not. And you’re not bold enough to go and join the play because you’d be attacked. Instead you just and watch, standing and watching, waiting and hoping. I’m super anthropomorphizing here I know but still… it just seems so lonely to be a male hyena trying to immigrate to a new clan.

But then I think about Jazz, the highest ranking male hyena in HZ and the level of acceptance he has gained. Jazz sticks his head into den holes and groans and plays and greets with cubs and sacks out within 5m of the alpha and doesn’t get aggressed on. Some day Sriracha may have that. I hope I get to see Sriracha again and that he immigrates successfully to HZ.   

Leopards and hyena cubs.

Beautiful full moon this morning, turned off the headlights for a few minutes while driving along the road at 5:45 this morning. Everything lit up with the soft glow of reflected sunlight. Saw all the usual crowd this morning in Happy Zebra, every single cub except for Higgs, but I didn’t hear a cub whooping in Rumpy culvert which by process of elimination should have been Higgs. Also saw a male standing around about 200m away from Pike and company. He didn’t try to approach and interact and after a bit her started loping off to the east. I had driven over to where he was and snapped a few photos as he loped past then revved around to try and get his other side because based on his behavior my gut instinct was telling me that he was an alien male. I didn’t recognize his spots right off the bat but I don’t know both sides of every single animal in Happy Zebra 100% yet. Hyenas can lope fast and its often hard to keep up but luckily the grass was short and he paused a few times so that I was able to go around some culverts, cross the road, and follow him east. Eremet, who had been hanging back from the main group, seemed to startle him as he loped by but he made no move to interact with her either.

Did the SST prey transect this morning, it can be slow going to a transect on your own counting animals within 100m of the car on both sides of the track. Actually got an oribi within 100m this time! We see oribi every once in a while but we hardly ever get to count them in the transects. The grass is still somewhat long on the SST and the swallows were going crazy around the Maruti as my tires kicked up bugs. It’s quite fun watching them swoop and dive, makes me worry that I’ll hit them with the car but they’re quite agile and seem very confident flying around the car. Fairly quiet and peaceful morning otherwise.

Amazing night tonight. Had a very intimate and personal encounter with a leopard by which I mean all to myself with no other tourists and in a very close and relaxed setting. Was thinking it was about time to see a leopard, haven’t seen one since the trip back from Nairobi in August. This one was curled up on top of a termite mound, totally relaxed and serene. I drove up to it until it gave me a curious look and then I turned off the car and simply enjoyed its presence. It seemed extremely relaxed and a little sleepy (yawned a few times). Seeing a leopard is an amazing feeling, they are so rare and elusive that it always feels like a very special gift to sight one. It’s also strange to think that they are always around, and probably way more leopards see me than I see them. Always around but totally invisible, except for these rare moments when they let themselves be caught out in the open. 

They are certainly the most beautiful big cat of Africa, sleek muscular body and absolutely stunning spots and liquid piercing green eyes that look right back at you without blinking. Totally incredible. My whole body tingled as a sat perfectly silent (except for my camera) just soaking up the presence of this animal. This animal hunts and lives and sleeps all in this area that I drive through every single day and yet no sign of it is ever given. I see hyenas every day, lions almost every day, cheetahs every few weeks- but leopards only occasionally. And never like this, never alone one-on-one with no tourists crowding. Perfectly silent except for the gentle roar of the mara river about 800km east of us. Also surprising is the cat-ness of the leopard, scratching itself, turning and licking, standing up and stretching, so similar to my own pet cat. When it left I let out the breath that I’d been holding for the thirty minutes we shared together.

At the den I gave Biscuit her first female tick mark and she started to nurse from Bellagio just before I left so I can be absolutely sure that this is the same cub we saw at Bellagio’s natal den and not Komo’s cub. Komo once again stayed firmly planted deep in the den hole, mostly out of sight so I know she has a much younger cub in there. JLP was there again and while Bellagio slept (seemed exhausted) she played heartily with Biscuit. Biscuit is turning out to be an extremely spazzy little cub, cub movements always tend to be a little quicker, but this cub… and she’s a biter! She played hard with JLP, grabbing onto the skin on her cheek and bite-shaking with quite some force for a tiny little cub about the size of a soccer ball (though smaller if she was curled up tight in a ball). Komo snapped at Biscuit a few times as she kept falling into the den and then running out again disturbing Komo and Bellagio got annoyed with JLP once or twice for playing too rough I think. Java showed up for a bit and then disappeared, I think she’s only been hanging around for Komo and not because she has her own cubs. Though she could very well be pregnant. Exciting to be expecting a second cub soon though!! Nothing more fun than watching cubs play. Ever more certain that JLP is a girl, hanging out at den’s and playing with cubs seems to be a very subadult female thing. Still no shoulder spots on Biscuit yet so I’ve given her a birthdate of August 11^th which would put her at 10 weeks. Shoulder spots usually appear between 3 and 3.5 months. Hyena cubs develop extremely slowly in comparison to other carnivores, where a dog is full size (though perhaps not fleshed out) at 6 months hyenas do not reach full size until 2 years of age and will not stop looking subby until 3 years old. They nurse for over a year, usually 14 to 16 months when they’re already getting quite big. This slow development is similar to primates – in order to learn and develop in such a complex social system they require an extended juvenile period. 

Black rhinos, baby bat-eared foxes, and lions in the darkness.

Saw a black rhino right outside of camp today! Probably about 200m away. It seems like we see them every time after it rains. No rhinos all summer when it was hot and dry, lots in May when it was rainy. It was a young male, looked to be in very good condition. He watched us as we took photos then meandered into the forest at the far end of camp. Super cool – always makes me glad to know that they’re still around. Photo credit to Emily Thomas. 

Just me on evening obs (from 5-8) today since Emily is still recovering. She wanted to come out but we agreed it would probably be better if she took it very easy. Only a few hyenas tonight but go a special surprise- baby bat-eared foxes! They were tiny, about the size of two fists together. Three little guys all cuddled up together in a pile. Their parents were wandering around about 50m away. Super adorable. 

Not too far away more tourist cars were gathering and I found two adult male lions completely asleep. They didn’t look like they’d be lifting their heads anytime soon so I left and drove around on the other side of mgorro lugga to look for hyenas. After 6:30 all the tourists cars go back to the lodge so around 6:45 I looped around to take another look at the lions figuring they’d start waking up now that it was dark out. I was right, both males had their heads up and one of them started to walk to the north even before I could get photos of him. I drove back to the road and looped around to a track that I predicted would be in their trajectory and waited. Sure enough first in the distance four orange eyes appeared, followed by the faint tawny color and prowling gait of the two male lions. I positioned myself in their path and got some good ID photos- and cool shots- of the two males as they walked within 20m of my car. After they passed I saw two tiny orange eyes about 30m away. I drove closer and saw one of the baby bat-eared foxes staring towards where the lions had walked off! As I drew up he turned and bolted back to the safety of the little hole I’d seen them sitting by earlier. Super cute, the male lions hadn’t even noticed but to this little guy they must have been terrifying.

Took the river road back to camp, still no sign of George or the den, but bumped into Eleanor nursing her cubs Michelle and Jude. Closer to the river orange hippo eyes started to appear, it’s pretty typical to see many hippos driving along this road at night because it curves along about 50 to 100m from the river and as soon as it gets dark out the hippos start to emerge in force. Only saw 6 tonight, in pairs of two. Mostly looked like adult females and their almost grown offspring. With their huge bulk and bright glowing orange eyes they can be quite formidable, even to me in the land cruiser. I am always very careful to give these guys their space, I’ve never been charged by one and I don’t want to experience that anytime soon!

Chapati tonight for dinner! I don’t know what it is about chapatti that is so freakin’ delicious, especially with lentils and guacamole. Emily super tired and with no appetite so she went to bed early. We’ll see tomorrow if those meds have gotten rid of the malaria. If she’s still feeling off tomorrow we might need to start worrying. 

Mid-october back in the Mara...

Super glad to be back in the Mara. Had a crazy day today though- Emily got diagnosed with Malaria. She was feeling off on the day I got back to the mara (5 days ago) with a fever and we both stayed in that evening since I didn’t arrive until after 5 and had a lot of unpacking to do. She slept in the next morning and I went out alone my first morning back- which wasn’t bad since I got to see Biscuit being super adorable and actually coming out of the den. South finally has a cub! Though Bron technically is still under a year old, still in the super fluffy phase. Emily was dosing up with Tylenol which was making her feel well enough to work these past few days but this morning she had a bad head ache and by the afternoon Tylenol AND ibuprofen were not cutting the icky fever feeling. There was only an expired test kit in the lab tent so we ended up going up to the lodge. I actually bought a 12 pack of malarone two weeks ago in Nairobi which is the standard treatment dosage for malaria, (4 pills a day where as when it is used for prophylaxis it is 1x per day). We went up the lodge and visited the clinic and the doctor there gave her a malaria test which came out positive! 

Totally crazy, Dr. Holekamp says she is only the second RA to ever get malaria while on a prophylaxis, the other was a very large guy such that the standard prophylaxis dosage with inadequate. Talking to the doctor was very interesting, he didn’t know the difference between Tylenl and Ibuprofen which was a little disturbing but he seemed to know his shit when it came to Malaria. At first he was a little skeptical since, though Emily has been feeling awful for several days, she is still walking and talking but he admitted that yes, taking mefloquine could be suppressing her symptoms somewhat. After talking to her he said he would give her drugs for the treatment of malaria and said that yes- she does have it, even after talking as if he was skeptical. So we asked for the malaria test even though he said the mefloquine might make it come out negative anyway. 

While we were waiting we talked about hyenas, of course, and how they are great hunters and why we are studying them. He started off with saying that they are awful  animals because they kill goats. Well they also kill cattle too. We told him the project does help pay for the cost of predator proof bomas to those who have lost animals. He still seemed to think they were awful animals anyway haha. We also talked about rabies and he said that hyenas do not get rabies, but then later amended that dogs have rabies and other animals only get rabies if a dog bites them. Well.. kind of. It was very interesting the words he chose to use, lots of: take this and you will feel  better. This will make you better (without explanation of what this was). And very confident, I know malaria very well, I can tell it apart from other illness with the same symptoms. And very importantly he stressed over and over that Emily must take the follow up doses even if she starts to feel better. He also gave her a NSAID  (not ibuprofen)  with the first dosage of malaria treatment. Maybe that is standard so that the ill person will immediately start to feel better and thus trust the medicine? Interesting the way a doctor must act in Kenya with Kenya patients/culture/beliefs. Emily and I had lots of questions about the types of medicine which I don’t think he normally deals with.

He also gave her two little cups of yogurt, telling her that yogurt will get her appetite going and that it goes well with porridge. Which actually makes sense since yogurt is a probiotic. When I got back from obs Emily said she WAS feeling better and that (despite feeling nauseous) the yogurt did get her appetite going again and she had had some oatmeal. She ate a little of dinner too so hopefully this drug will kick it and she’ll be better in two days.

Had relatively quiet obs this evening while driving around. Went to a spot where we’ve been seeing a lot of Bart’s points and though I didn’t find Bart I did find her cub Bron! Apparently this is the meadow where Bron has been living the past week hence the clustering of Bart’s points. I was curious about Bart’s gps points because a natal den will show maybe ten points all in one spot, but what we were seeing with Bart was fifteen points but semi scattered. Makes sense now! Bron is the youngest cub in South (not counting Biscuit) and he would probably still be using a den if there were other cubs around. He was very small and muddy looking and I almost missed him, quite adorable.

I got to the den close to 7 and there were a million hyenas. And by a million I mean 6- at first. Bellagio was there of course, she’s the mother of our new south cub Biscuit (who is a little over 2 months old now and still mostly all black except for his head). All the golden girls were there, the four very old south females that we have never observed to have any cubs, Kneesocks (who has no spots above her legs, fading spots are a sign of age), Brophy (Wes’s girlfriend), Grimace (a hyena whose lip curls up in a spot like a sneer), and Big Bad Wolf (or just BB dubs for short, who is so old with a thick saggy neck and long shaggy fur and essentially no spots at all. They seem to get shaggy when they get really old). 

Komo, South’s alpha’s daughter, was firmly planted in the den hole the entire session and did not leave once even with Biscuit going in and out. Made me wonder if Biscuit might not be hers but if he was she wasn’t coming out of the den with him which makes me think she has her own cub in there that is still too young to come out, judging by how deeply she was in the den hole. Cruz and Toledo were both hanging out around the periphery all evening, two of South’s immigrant males. Jean-Luc Picard (or just JLP) was hanging out and being a little obnoxious, she is listed as a male in the book, but I’m starting to think this hyena is female. Males treat her like a female and at the den she was groaning constantly, sticking her head into the hole, and aggressively chasing off the immigrant males. Komo finally got fed up with all the groaning (groaning means hey don’t be afraid I’m being friendly I want to see a cub) because it really looked like JLP was just being annoying walking around back and forth and eventually lunged at JLP a few times to get her point across. Star, just over a year, was also chilling out but being non-obtrusive. Two collared females showed up, Java and Marten. Java is the alpha and Marten is the JLP’s mother. She looked like she had big nipples so maybe she has a cub too!! Sadly her sub-cub Korben is missing. Her cubs are all named after space captains if you were wondering. Her collar is no longer working so we are hoping to dart Marten soon and fix it.

The den scene was so active with all these females that I forgot to turn the car back on every ten to fifteen minutes so that the headlamps wouldn’t drain the battery and by 7:30 when I did remember it wouldn’t start. Tried not to freak out and turned everything off and unplugged all the gps, maglight, and telemetry chargers and decided to wait half an hour. We have been having a lot of issues with batteries I this car so I was worried that this was the start of more battery issues but luckily at 8 the car turned back on again no problem. Useful trick I learned from a AAA agent who arrived to start Brighty thirty minutes after I hadn’t been able to start him and turned right on (this was a headlights drain too). 

These problems started in July when the cruiser failed to start one morning after we’d been driving for about ten minutes. Got a jump then kept going and the cruiser died again- this time at a den that took some time to obtain a rescue from. Our mechanic Laragin came and cleaned the batteries and replaced some of the connectors and also recharged the batteries. That fixed it for about a month then it died again, this time on a hill such that Emily and I were able to push it backwards down the hill a bit and get it going again. This time Laragin came and rewired the batteries so that both were going to the alternator rather than having one battery drawing from the other battery. All good for another month or so then it died again in September. Once again we have Laragin come take a look and this time we order new wire and replace some of the wires altogether. 

Cruiser works until its in Talek for a week while RAs are in Nairobi doing errands (including me). Dies after two days in Talek, well there wasn’t any more wiring things to fix so we finally decided to replace the batteries. Laragin kept telling us the batteries were bad, one very bad and one starting to go bad. Both batteries were less than a year old so we wanted to try everything else first. We could buy just one new one to replace the definitely bad one but Laragin advised, and I agreed, that if you replace one battery you should replace both so that a bad battery doesn’t damage a new good battery by being hooked up together. In the end we decided to buy just one new battery and have the cruiser run on one to test and make sure that a brand new battery solved it for good. If this brand new battery dies then we’ll know there is something more to all these electrical problems!!

So now that I had the headlamps off I had to use the maglight to do all obs. Let me tell you, using a maglight, binos, and a DVR can be very difficult when you don’t have three hands. Needless to say I wasn’t able to catch all the behaviors going on. Behind me to the south west there are some very black clouds starting to cover the sky. It is almost a full moon so the nights have been pretty bright and clouds are easily visible in the sky. It looked pretty isolated, just a small shower coming down from one patch but it kept drawing closer and growing in size. Soon lightning was lighting up my surroundings and I was starting to wonder if I shouldn’t just call Laragin to jump the car before this storm hit. 

Luckily the car did start at 8 and the storm wasn’t here yet. It was starting to look big and by the time I pulled away from the den it was starting to sprinkle. During dinner the sky broke open and absolutely downpoured. Not sure how many millimeters we’ve gotten but sounds like its stopped now so maybe I’ll be able to go out! Emily is strictly off obs duty until she feels better. She kept taking Tylenol so that she’d feel well enough to come out which in hindsight was probably not a good thing, especially since Tylenol just covers up the sickness.

Being out alone in the dark in the middle of the mara can be a little creepy. Especially when you’re not sure if your car will start or not I sometimes feel  rather nervous. The hyenas are a comfort though because their behavior, calm and playful doing normal things around the den also makes me feel calm. The hyenas are secure out here so there isn’t anything to worry about. But when I pull away from the den then I’m truly all alone rumbling along rocky dirt roads in this old cruiser (1995). The storm was a bit of an omnious presence to my right as I drove north back towards the lodge. The lodge was very easily visible though, lit up at the top of a hill emitting a soft orange glow. Our camp is just down the road from the lodge and right next to the public campsite so the lodge is a good landmark for getting home!

Did get to see a white-tailed mongoose run across the road- since they are small carnivores we record their location and numbers. We usually only see them at night but their bright white tails make them very easy to identify. While coming up the driveway into camp I saw a giraffe head poking out of the thicket at the edge of the forest that our camp is inside, it proceeded to walk up the driveway and disaper into the woods next to camp. Cool to see a twiga so close but apparently they are the worst animal to have in camp because they walk right through the tent strings and pull everything down.

Suppose I should update everyone about the rest of the Nairobi trip as well! Before Dave left we went and visited Steph, a former RA and hyena lab student who married a tour guide and moved to Kenya and currently lives in Nairobi. Her house has cool hyena artwork all over it, she has a bronze cast of a hyena skull that apparently she got made for free because she provided the skull for the original cast. Super jealous. There was also a huge charcoal hyena drawing which made me itch for big canvases. At the book/art supply store I nearly bought a large 2 x 3 ft.sketch pad and some charcoal but with some self-control put them back. I already have plenty of pencils and paper and paint and I don’t know how I would travel with more art supplies than what I have. I’ve also started shopping for Halloween costume supplies, we’re going to have a Halloween party hopefully so I bought an orange t-shirt and some spray paint so that I can predictably be a tiger.

After Dave left Phoebe and I visited the elephant orphanage. Only about $5 to go visit it from 11 to 12 when they bring out all the baby elephants for their morning bottle feed. First they brought out the three youngest babies, 4 and 5 weeks old. These guys were so tiny only about two feet tall and they walked very carefully and shyly with their foreheads touching the back of their keeper’s knees. They went straight for the sandy spot within the roped off area and awkwardly tried to roll and play in it. Their keepers used a shovel to pour dirt on their heads and between their ears which they seemed to love. Totally adorable and heartbreaking. The head? keeper told the story and name of each elephant. After the little guys left they brought in the older crew all under a year and finally the bigger kids between 2 and 3 years old. Total of 33 orphan elephants. No orphan rhinos,which I was sad to not get to see but happy to hear.

Also got a hip strap added to my backpack by the canvas people who repair our tents. They do a lot of neat canvas work and Dave had them back canvas covers for his field books. We left super early from Nairobi and made it back to Talek by 1, record time! As much as I love staying in Talek and seeing the talek hyenas I was dying to get back to Serena so we put the new battery into KAL (the serena cruiser) which took some fiddling trying to figure out which wires to connect and I made it to Serena around 5pm.

Ironically it’s south now that has the really good den scene. For my entire time here both North and Happy Zebra have had very active den scenes with many animals and cubs but now we don’t know where either of those clans is denning and South is extremely social, last night was the most adult females I’ve seen all together in South. When I first got out here all of North and HZ cubs were of den age but by around June/July they were starting to graduate the den and now both clans have only one cub that is den age. In north this is George and I haven’t seen him since before I went to Nairobi. With only one small cub it seems that LogC has been moving him around a lot, I don’t think the den scene will stay in one spot until there are more cubs born. The same phenomenon is happening in HZ. Only Higgs is of den age and though there are certain areas in HZ where everyone has been hanging out until yesterday it had been forever since we’d seen Higgs.

Emily told me HZ has been hanging out in the western edge of their territory near a large flat rock called pride rock. The first time we went out we also saw a few of them even further west in a culvert named Rumpy culvert. Hyenas freakin’ love culverts. HZ territory is huge and we’re not sure how huge because none of the animals have collars, but when I first got here I felt like they used an area north of the road and an area between two hills south of the road. Then when they started moving dens in July they moved south and east into an area with tracks that even Wes had never taken. Now they’re hanging out all the way to third watering hole when previously I’d never even gone past 2^nd watering hole- named Egyptian goose watering hole. We’ll see where they move next but for now it seems like Rumpy Culvert has become the den and not just a hang out spot because Ojy and Higs were there too! It seems to me like the entire clan liked that area and finally ojy decided that she would bring higs there too. 

Unfortunately it is a culvert that goes underneath the high road, the busiest piece of road in the entire mara. There are often balloon crews speeding along that road since they don’t have any tourists in their cars and we already have one hyena dead. Malo was a HZ subadult and he’d just transitioned from fluffy sub to bigger small adult looking sub. I’d just taken new ID shots of both his sides two days before he was found dead. Emily was alone in serena camp since I was in Nairobi and had to go and get Malo and do his necropsy. Luckily the water researchers were in camp and their assistant Gammi and they helped with cuttin off the head and getting tissue samples. Broken jaw and a lot of internal bleeding means it was definitely a car. His two younger sisters Ando and Dara are both semi-graduated cubs playing in Rumpy Culvert now. Higgs was looking huge though, he’s lost all his black now and has some really cool spots, Emily was super amazed since she hadn’t seen him since mid-september! It’s a good spot for obs and easy to get to but for once Emily and I are both hoping they’ll move on somewhere else soon!

As for north they’ve been hanging out near the river but that’s the only consistency in their movements, usually I have good instincts about where the den is based on the adult female movements but with George I’m clueless. I haven’ t seen much of LogC which makes me not worry about  him, I’m sure she’s hanging out near the den he’s in. If I was seeing a lot of LogC with no George I’d start to worry about the little guy. It looks like a lot of HZ and North animals are pregnant though and I’ve hardly seen Tinsel at all so I’m sure she’s on a natal den so hopefully by December we’ll have a good communal den scene again in all three territories.

With the intermittent rain we’ve been getting the bugs are back in force now- including mosquitos. When I first got out here in May I was putting on bug spray almost every day but during that dry dusty summer/winter I completely stopped using it. Now I have a bottle sitting in the lab tent for frequent use because the mosquitos are biting hard. Makes me worried about getting malaria too, but Emily could have gotten in while she was in Nairobi. Prophylaxis doesn’t actually kill or prevent the bacteria it just suppresses them such that they don’t cause illness. The only prophylaxis that kills malaria is Malarone which treats it at the source in one of the organs, spleen maybe? Otherwise there’s no way to prevent getting malaria in your bloodstream aside from wearing a shit ton of bug spray. Kind of crazy. That’s why you have to keep taking the drug long after you leave a malarial zone to make sure that you fully rid your body of it from your bloodstream before you stop taking the drug.

Didn’t finish this post last night- its morning now and when I checked the rain guage we got 7.5mm last night which is just barely too much to go out with. Its not that our driveway or the roads will be impassable, I could probably drive to FML den or Rumpy Culvert and see some hyenas. But driving on the tracks when they’re wet can really destroy them, especially the tracks that pass through low areas, gunning through mucky spots in 4 wheel  can dig ruts into a track that will stick around even as they dry, forcing future cars to go around the areas and widen the track. Going off road when its wet almost guarantees destroying the grass and leaving new tracks that will stick around for months. In our work every time we see a hyena we almost always have to go off road to ID them and get location information. This means its usually just not worth it to risk incomplete data and track destruction.

So that’s about in for life in the field! Lots to do and lots to worry about. And now it’s time for me to keep working on my NSF grant! (And keep working on the quarterly note compilation). 

Nairobi Trip

October 6th

In Nairobi again and its really not too bad. It seems like the short rains may be here, been getting a ton of rain! We had several nights with no obs the last week before Wes left. Camp very quiet with Wes gone, we all spent two days in Talek and had a going-away party for Wes. It was very fun to spend two nights in Talek. Cruiser up and running again, rewiring seemed to fix everything! We have a new receiver for the radio collars too so hopefully tracking will be better now.

Dave found North’s new den and we found where Happy Zebra has been hanging out, so now we’re just waiting for some head pokes from these south cubs and hopefully we’ll have a communal den there now too. Bellagio has been hanging out at FML Den along with a lot of the other hyenas, they all seem to be clustering around there. Emily just got back from Nairobi from dropping off Wes, but now Dave is leaving for all of October and into November for his brother’s wedding so Phoebe and I are in Nairobi to drop him off. Its pretty hilarious, Hadley seems to be the Talek equivalent of Emily and I am the Serena equivalent of Phoebe. Both Emily and Hadley are runners, both Phoebe and I are nerds. Now that I’ve stopped shaving my armpits I am even more like Phoebe!

Went riding this morning with Dave and Phoebe and got to do some really fast galloping which was really fun, going all out, its been a while. Got a really good horse this time named Survivor. Phoebe was on Achi and they got along well though he definitely took advantage of her. But by the end both Phoebe and Dave got a few strides of canter in and had fun trotting. Dave was on a horse named Small-T. Our guide’s horse was named Richard and I forgot to ask the name of the guide’s horse who stayed back with Phoebe and Dave.  Just a one hour which I think is a good amount of time, two hours was a little longlast time.

A littler nervous to be in Nairobi what with the Westgate stuff, but the security at Galleria is WAY amped up so that makes me feel pretty good. Nothing is probably going to happen so soon after the last one. Been seeing a ton of cheetahs and lions lately in the mara. There is a trio of three young cheetah brothers that Julie and I have had some STUNNING sightings with. The other night we also saw a pride of 9 lions, probably the mgorro pride. Three adult females, two large subadult males and four smaller subs. They were all walking and playing and running while we drove home in the dark from happy zebra. 

Post that should have gone up mid-september...

September 15th

Halfway through september already! Been just Emily and I in camp for over the last week while Wes and Julie are in Talek for Kay. Things have been running really smoothly which is good to know. Emily and I get along great so I think this upcoming year is going to be a good one. 

The choo was starting to collapse so Philimon and Moses are digging a new one! Crazy. But it looks really good so far. Cruiser still having battery problems. Laragin, the conservancy mechanic, says that the batteries are both going bad but that this is partly due to one of them being leaky due to bouncing so he rewelded the holder. Also some of the battery wires are not the optimal type of wire for batteries and possibly the way they are set up in parallel is causing them to drain each other. If this is the case then rewiring them should fix this problem (second time its happened now) but I'm worried that there could be more to it, such as an alternator problem. We're waiting for Wes and Dave's opinions on this one. 

Found North and Happy Zebra dens now, both are denning in semi-rocky areas which is annoying because you can never be sure if its okay to drive around, especially once it gets dark out. We're excited for the next cohort of cubs to start being born soon so that the den scenes will be better! Alll these half-graduated cubs running around 200m from the den... 

We saw a hyena named Bellagio last night, first time I had ever seen her. We looked up her date last seen and it was way back in april. Didn't know she was still alive! Also exciting is that she had big nipples and was partly in a hole. Looked like a natal den to me!! 

Also Jazz is the sweetest male hyena ever (HZ clan). He is always hanging around the den and now he's even playing and greeting with the cubs. Super adorable, Emily and I are going to write a post together about the clan males to go along with my serena matriarchs post. 

Mama Hog is back in camp which is super awesome. We saw her with a tiny little baby piglet out on the breakfast plains in front of camp a few days ago and we enacted Project Camp Piglet to attempt to get this little piglet in camp. Mama Hog and Wilbur did indeed come back into camp for a day but so far little piglet has stayed out on the breakfast plains. 

September 17^th

Bellagio is definitely on a natal den! Found her twice with her butt in a hole and she clearly has nipples. Super crazy luck that we did find her, we drove down this random track that seemed to be continuing on past one of the south dens so we decided to explore a little and we caught sight of her sacked out on top of the mound which contains the den hole. Unfortunately we couldn’t reach the  mound because a stretch of rocky thicket separated us (we saw her THROUGH the thicket) and we had to go around. Amazingly we found that mound again on the other side and were super excited to see an adult female that looked like she was lactating. Wonder what she’s been up to all summer!

So finally the fall cub rush is going to begin and hopefully we’ll have some good den scenes in the upcoming month and no more of this 200m diameter den scene nonsense with half the cubs missing or moved to another den.

On another note it rained last night! Real rain, coming down hard and loud with lightning and thunder. Woke up to 20mm and decided to sleep in. Philimon says we will probably get rain tonight and tomorrow night. One night of rain won’t be enough to cut the dust but if this keeps up soon everything will get green again. And at least today has not been so hot and dusty as previously.

Already september!!

Rabbit rabbit! Can’t believe it’s already September, two months left to write my NSF. Already have a good draft going of my personal statement and getting ideas formulated for the proposal so I’m feeling pretty confident.

We got some really cool storms a few nights ago, watching them roll in was really neat, there was lightning to the north and the south but clear skies above us. Finally the rain came in and it poured all evening. We finished watching Beauty and the Geek which I think I actually liked despite myself. 

We inventoried the storage tent and the lab tent so now I actually know where everything in camp is and I found a laser mouse which is making me really happy. Small things are important out here.

But I haven’t gotten to the best part yet. Wes slept in this morning, we got 5mm of rain which is almost enough to make us stay in but Emily and I wanted to go out so Julie said she would too so we decided to at least hit up north den (which is right on the road next to the airstrip right now) and then see how the roads were. Unfortunately Julie was sick this morning so she stayed in and of course whenever someone stays in you are almost guaranteed to get awesome sightings.

Emily and I noticed about 7 cars all lined up on the long road about a kilometer from where we were, the tracks were a little slick in this area but we took it slow until we hit the long road then drove over to see what the deal was. The deal was little lion cubs! Four of them all still pretty small and freakin’ adorable. Making squeaky little noises while their mother lay in the grass about 10m from the road and us. Super close! About the best lion cub sighting you could absolutely ask for. We stayed for over 30 minutes and they climbed up on a mound very close to us and posed perfectly for us. Cuteness overload.

This seems to be the time of year for adorable baby animals, I think top of my list would be to see baby leopards, but just leopards alone are still super cool. Even boring lions are still moderately cool.

So spent two days driving to the mara north conservancy for paintball and birthday celebrations forone of the balloon pilots! There are only two balloon pilots in the serena part of the park but given the huge number of lodges on the narok half of the park and also in the mara north conservancy there actually is quite a number of them total. It was maybe a two or three hour drive to the Fairmont safari club where JP and his wife live. It was awesome to go further than the Oloololo gate drive along the base of the escarpment. The river winds all the way up to the escarpment and then meanders around the base for quite a while. Moses dropped off his wife and daughter (super adorable) along the way.

I felt a little out of place among all these balloon pilots only knowing a few people but paintball was super fun and I have some green and black bruises to show for it. They provided us with jump suits and masks and when the guy explained we would be playing “No surrender” meaning you’re only out if you shout that you surrender I started to feel pretty nervous. You can hit someone with enough paintballs and put them in enough pain for force them to surrender?? I hadn’t realized paintballs could potentially hurt that much! However it turned out they don’t really hurt that much unless someone has you cornerd at three feet. Not that many people actually surrendered though so the next game we played we went by one hit in a critical area, arms and legs don’t count. That was fun too but I got out pretty quick. The last two rounds everyone just needed to get rid of bullets (since some of us got out with only firing a few shots) so we played the “no surrender” version again and just had fun shooting each other. There was a flag that we were all going for but mostly it was just shoot the other team. 

We finally got the parts for the hi-lux so Langat is here in camp repairing the hilux so hopefully Wes and Julie can make it to Talek today. Kay is coming in to Talek tomorrow if all goes well and they both want to be around when she is there (Wes to learn darting and Julie to talk about her proposal). So then it'll be just Emily and I in camp which will be nice to have a very small quiet camp again. Missing those days where it was just Julia and I in camp. Everything seems to go a lot more smoothly. 

So I wrote a story about a wildebeest...

My name is Old One-Horn and I am a wildebeest of the mara-serengeti. I may be the oldest wildebeest of my herd and as you might be envisioning my left horn is broken off a little over an inch from the base. However I was not always old and (though many assume I lost my horn as an adult in a fight perhaps) I lost my horn when I was very very young.

Now when I say herd I must clarify between my family herd and the vast herd of which all family herds are part of that traverses the vast mara-serengeti ecosystem every year. My family herd is about a hundred animals strong and we can all trace our ancestry back to a male wildebeest named Matope. This is not Kiswahili for something strong and regal, but actually means muddy. For when Matope was a young calf he got stuck in a buffalo wallow. He managed to free himself because as a calf he was big and strong for his age but he was so covered in mud that even his own mother didn’t recognize him. In fact, many of the wildebeest thought he was a topi. Topi are a reddish colored antelope and the mud that Matope had been stuck in was red clay.

For most of the year we remain in our family herd until the rains move on and it is time to follow, and then we mass together into the Great Herd of thousands and thousands of wildebeest.

I was born late one spring, a little after most of the other calves, in a beautiful valley of lush green grass. The summer before this area had been burned and now, with soil rich with carbon from the fire, this valley was the most beautiful area you could imagine. Nestled below a tall escarpment on one side and ringed with rocky inselbergs on the other it was the perfect place to be a young wildebeest. I did not get my name until I was 5 weeks old, and until then my mother simply called me matoto kdogo, which in Kiswahili means little child.

This valley was my home and as all young children do I assumed that it would be my home for my entire life. The days were long and sunny and I spent them nursing from my mother, sleeping under her watchful gaze and playing with the other wildebeest.

Now there were cats and fisi around for any area as lush and full of grazers as this valley was becomes a target for the attentions of predators, but my mother assured me that as long as I drank lots of milk and grew up to big and strong I would have nothing to worry from them. Though their glowing eyes often scared me in the night my mother explained to me how the cats and fisi (hyenas) actually keep us healthy.

There was a time when there were no meat eaters, only grazers, and we covered the entire world, my mother told me, but we grew greedy and as our numbers grew we started to compete with the cats and the fisi, who were not meat-eaters back then. The cats lived in the trees and ate leaves and bark and the fisi ran in great packs and dug holes in the ground to eat roots and tubers. There were so many grazers that we had started to eat the leaves and paw at the ground to eat the tubers and our numbers swelled such that we trampled any remaining grass in the dirt and the world became dry and dusty. We fell ill peeling park from the trees and eating the dirt covered plants that remained. And one by one disease and sickness started to spread and everyone was very unhappy. The cats and the fisi were starving and pressed for space many grazers were injured and trampled into the ground. Death was all around us. So one day one animal from each species of grazers and each species of cat and fisi convened and journeyed a great distance to a great mountain that is the origin of the rain. And they pleaded to the rain god to please fix their problems because they could not see how to solve them on their own. The rain god frowned upon his subjects with distaste at their state of being covered in dirt and despair. He saw that the grazers had been greedy and were hurting the cats and the fisi.

So he declared that from now on the cats and fisi would eat the grazers and this would solve all of our problems at once.

The fisi, the cats, and the grazers were appalled. For years and years, from the beginning of time, the grazers, the fisi, and the cats had all been friends, living in harmony side by side. If the fisi and the cats were to eat the grazers they would be forever enemies and friends no more. How was this a solution to our problems?

The rain god waited quietly for the protests to die down and then smiled sadly and explained how this change would solve our problems. The cats and the fisi would only eat those animals that were already sick, hurt, and dying. And by doing so, he declared, they would do us a favor because by taking out the weak, we could only become stronger. Sick animals could not spread the disease, old animals who died naturally would not rot in the sun and poison the ground, and the injured would not suffer in pain.

Everyone nodded in agreement at this declaration for it was a very just and fair solution to a problem created out of the greed of the grazers. The grazers, the cats, and the fisi all fell to their knees and cried out their gratitude to the rain god.

And so the rain god moved away the clouds and granted sharp claws and sharp teeth to the cats, and strong jaws and a smart mind to the fisi so that they may hunt and eat the grazers, but he also gave the grazers horns to protect themselves such that the cats and fisi would be unable to take out the strong and healthy.

So you must remember, my mother finished, that long ago the cats and the fisi were our friends and though we are enemies today they still do us a favor. Everyone’s time will come when they must sink into the black river (which is what we call death) and when that time comes you must be brave and accept your fate.

But I don’t ever want to leave you mother! I cried and she smiled sadly at me and licked my forehead, And you won’t, at least not for many years. And I do not ever want to leave you.

Promise me that you’ll stay with me always? I asked, Until we’re both old?

My mother nodded and said, I promise.

And so I spent my days frolicking in the sun and at night when I pressed myself against my mother’s side I reminded myself that we were both strong and healthy so when the simba roared in the night and the fisi chorused with long sad whoops I didn’t feel quite so afraid.

However, as I was to learn, this life could not last forever. I had grown used to watching the thunderstorms roll in every evening and listening to the rain god boom his presence and send his lightning bolts down to earth as the heavens opened up and water poured out from the sky. The thunder and lightning had never scared me and I loved the feel of wet grass in the morning. Soon though the thunderstorms stopped coming every day until it had been three weeks without rain. The lush green savannahs of my childhood were turning brown and dusty and the grass was shorter every day. I remembered the story my mother told me of when the entire world had turned dry and dusty.

What will we do mother? I asked.

It is time to move on, she said and a I felt a shiver of anxiety run through my body. Leave this valley? I had never traveled outside of this valley and I could not envision the world beyond it.

But I’m smaller than the other calves, will I be able to keep up? I inquired of my mother. She nuzzled me, You have grown so much since they day you were born, you have nearly caught up to them and I think you are the strongest and smartest matoto kdogo a mother could ask for.

We didn’t leave for another week and by then the dust in the air had made me start to cough and it saddened me to look down across the valley and see nothing but brown. As we started to walk other family herds joined us until our numbers swelled to at least a thousand animals. I was emboldened and excited by this, it was a magnificent feeling to be a part of something so big.

How do you know where to go? I asked my mother as we walked along following the trails made through the grass of thousands of hooves pressing down on the ground.

We follow the rain, she answered simply. I sniffed at the air and looked at the sky but today there wasn’t a cloud in sight.

My mother, sensing my uncertainty, said, You will learn to smell the clouds on the breeze and sense the electricity of a thunderstorm. But if you are ever uncertain of where to go, of which trails to follow and which rivers to cross, follow the zebra.

What’s a zebra? I asked.

You will see, she said, They are grazers like us and though we far outnumber them they are very strong and wise and you can always trust their instincts.

The very next day I met my first zebra. A herd of a few hundred joined our massive herd and I trotted over to say hello to their watoto.

Are you a zebra calf? I asked one who was walking next to his mother.

No, I’m a colt, he answered. A zebra colt.

Colt, I tried out the word. He nodded. This particular zebra colt proved to be a good friend and I gradually grew used to the endless days of walking. I started eating the grass alongside my mother every night though it was not rich and lush grass of my childhood. It was yellow and dry and tasted funny on my tongue but I was getting bigger and my mother’s milk was satisfying my hunger.

One day my mother took me aside. We are getting close to The River, she said. We had crossed many small creeks and luggas and I enjoyed splashing through the water and drinking my fill but the way my mother said the words The River made me hesitate.

This River comes from the mountain of the rain god and waters the great savannah, this is the river of life, she said, but also the river of death.

You mean the black river? I wondered.

No, not quite, this is a real river, but it takes many to the black river and you must be the bravest and strongest you have ever been in your life my matoto kdogo. You will make this crossing many times in your life but the first crossing is always the hardest.

I nodded my head and tried to feel big and strong. Instead I just felt like a very small and insignificant wildebeest calf in a herd of thousands of wildebeest calves.

There was a part of me that was as excited as I was fearful to see this river. It was the topic of discussion in the herds and I often caught murmings of The River... The River...

When I first saw it it was from the top of a hill and it looked like a great brown snake winding its way into the distance. It divided the landscape in two and I suddenly wondered what it would be like on the Other side. It almost seemed like trespassing to cross such a stark dividing line.

The zebra were already down by the river, carefully poking there way along the bank, looking for a good spot. We massed some distance away from the river and now I could hear its roar, like a hungry lion calling for his friends.

The zebra are crossing! Someone called and I could feel this building of energy, building of courage and suddenly I felt proud to be part of the Great Herd, together we were strong. We started walking towards the river, then trotting, then we were running for the spot the zebra had just finished crossing. Running because if we slowed to look at the river we would certainly lose all of our willpower.

As my hooves touched the bank and I saw the rushing and swirling brown waters below me I almost stopped, almost turned around, but my mother was behind me pushing me on and I lept into the water with a splash. I had never been in water so deep I’d had to swim before and I struggled furiously to remain afloat. My mother’s hooves reached the botom and she nudged me onward. The air was filled as the lowing of wildebeest and I too cried out in fear. Just as I got my first glimpse of the other bank I glimpsed something else too. Something I’d heard about but never seen, something long and dark green with eyes peeking above the water and glistening white teeth appeared as the thing opened its long flat jaws. If I’d thought I was swimming hard before I was wrong. I saw now for my life and my mother was crying out too trying to get in between me and the horrible thing. My feet touched rocks but as I stood up I tripped and fell and my then my growing horns were caught in the rocks. Was this really where the zebra had crossed and come out? It seemed that this opposite bank was nothing but boulders and I couldn’t get my head free, water was filling my eyes and my nose and that horrible thing was still close I was sure!

I wrenched my neck up and there was a great pain in my left horn but I was free, free! I surged up out the water gasping in sweet dry air and then I was up the other bank and on the other side. Gasping and crying I trotted away from the river as water poured off my coat. All around me animals were spreading out, steaming in the sun, and regrouping with their families.

Mother! Mother! I turned around and looked for her. All around me wildebeest, so many wildebeest but I didn’t recognize a single one. Where was the Matope family herd?

I felt water pouring down my forehead and the vision in my left eye turned red. The pain in my left horn returned, momentarily forgotten as I looked for my mother. It was blood running down my face I realized with horror. As I trotted back towards the bank I twitched my ear and felt a searing pain as my ear touched the raw stump of my horn.

Mother! I cried out again, longing for her comfort and warm body. My horn was gone! What would I do? How could I be big and strong and defend myself from the cats and teh fisi with only one horn?

Then I saw my mother leap over the bank, big and strong and fierce and I cried happily trotting towards her. She ran over to me and nuzzled me happily and then shoved me onward to run with her away from the river. We ran for with the rest of the herd over a hill and then suddenly we were surrounded my other Matope animals. We slowed and stopped, breathing hard, and my mother licked my horn gently.

Will I be okay mother?

Yes, you’ll be fine, she said, one horn is more than enough. And from that moment on she called me one horn and I was known by that for the rest of my life.

She cleaned the blood from my face ever so gently and I closed my eyes, enjoying the comfort of her presence.

Within a day though it became clear that all was not well. I’d thought the worst was over now that we’d crossed The River, but that was not so. We were late, or perhaps the rains here had been early. The grass was very tall, some of it above my back so that I could barely see where we were going but it was stiff and dry with little nutritional value. It had been out in the sun for too long and grown taller than what we could eat. The zebras could eat the top of this grass but we needed fresh shoots, young grass, green from the rain. And the zebras did not particularly like this grass either.

Additionally my mother had been hurt in the crossing. She tried to hide it from me for the first few days but I noticed a long thin slice on her back right thigh. Soon it started to pain her and she was not able to put so much weight on that leg.

After a week she admitted to me that it had been the horrible thing in the river that had done it to her and I felt a wave of guilt, for she had swam extra hard to protect me from it. It was my fault she was hurt- maybe if I hadn’t tripped she wouldn’t have needed to fall back and fight off the thing. The thing I learned was a crocodile.

I had been comforted by the story my mother had told me about the cats and the fisi, comforted by the thought that we had once been friends and that even today they did something good for us. But the thought of a lion or a fisi taking my mother away from me, and she had promised, promised that we would be together. Because, as much as I tried to deny it, my mother was injured and weak. She did not eat as much grass and I stopped nursing from her entirely, eating as much grass as I could to try and stay strong for her.

It happened one night after the moon set, I was grazing on what dry grass I could but suddenly the herd was moving. Startled my mother and I started running but of course she couldn’t run very fast at all. I slowed down and cried for her to run fast and be strong but she was shaking and sweating and I saw three dark shapes narrow in on us. The simba. We were running slowly and the Matope herd was pulling out of sight. A simba leapt for me but I kicked out and it retreated, I was too strong for her. But in that moment my mother had fallen to the other two. I looked back once and then ran.

I will never fogive myself for leaving my mother though others have told me that she had accepted her fate and given herself to them. That her death brought them another day of life for them and their watoto. That even if I had stayed I would have only risked injuring myself and then her death would have been for nothing. These words have meaning for me now, but then, they were useless. I was devastated.

I no longer even tried to eat the dead brown grass. I wandered listlessly, trailing at the back of the herd with my head down, barely mustering up the energy to put on hoof in front of the other. But the will to live burned stronger in me than the pain of the loss of my mother and we pushed onward, following the rains, hoping to find lush green pastures over the next hill.

I think the fear of starvation gave me energy and I began worrying with the rest of the herd about the grass situation. There were pockets of good grass hear and there, tucked away in small luggas and along the edges of thickets but not enough for the Great Herd thousands of animals strong. We were starving. I had not felt a single drop of rain touch my back since we’d crossed The River. I began to curse The River, and doubt the wisdom of even crossing in the first place. The crossing had brought nothing but death and misery. I was told that it was an easy crossing comparatively, everyone had stayed calm, we hadn’t rushed too much, and very few animals drowned. I just nodded ruefully when I herd this and my thoughts went back to the crocodile. An easy crossing? How could anything be easy, how could any crossing be good with a creature like that lurking in the depths just waiting for you to trip and drown?

We traveled north, ever north, keeping the sun to our right in the morning and on our left in the evening. Sometimes we’d be close enough to the river to hear its roar but we never ventured towards it. The rains were in the north the traveling rumours said. There was always greener savannah in the north. If we hurried we’d catch up to the rains and no one would starve. We left a trail of starving animals behind us, a small percentage of the Great Herd but even a small percentage of us meant hundreds dead and dying. At least I no longer feared the cats and the fisi. I remained strong but many calves in my cohort had been left behind.

It rained. Just a few short showers every few days, but it was enough to keep the strong alive. I had made my way to the front of the Great Herd where the grass was a little fresher than after it had been stomped by hundreds of hooves. I had no trouble keeping up with my fellow wildebeest and I found myself keeping pace with the zebra colt more often than not. We were both getting a little old to frolick like we once had but after a short rain shower one day I let myself go and we ran wild, bucking and yelling, momentarily happy to be alive. These short rains were only a temporary relief from the drought however. We reached the north only to see a valley as dry and brown as the valleys we’d left.

Standing at the top of that hill I felt a loneliness and isolation deeper than anything I’d thought possible. I was so far from the home, my birthplace, those lush green meadows. So far from where I’d grown up, in a country where nothing looked familiar. I longed to see the escarpment with the little doghead rock and the koppi with a rock at the base that looked like an elephant. I missed the flat topped inselbergs with all of my heart. Here there were forbidding looking mountains in the distant, dry and rocky looking. Below them were rolling hills covered in thicket with short dry grassy savannahs interspered between them. This grass had already been eaten down. There was some scant patches of grass but this too was dry and yellow. 

I felt that everything I’d told about life was a lie, life was nothing but dust and dirt and an endless trail to plod along. There was nothing for us grazers to be greedy about while the cats and the lions were feasting. This did not feel like a fair and just world to me. I looked at the sky, clear blue, just a few puffy clouds on the horizon and I cursed the rain god. Cursed him for the cats and lions and the crocodiles, for flooding the river and dividing the land. For dividing the animals into the grazers and the meat-eaters and for not even have the generosity to give me a bite of green grass to eat. I longed to be a fresh young calf again, longed to be ignorant and happy, longed to forget the river, forget the meat-eaters... longed for the rains. Real rains.

We decided to cross again and try our luck on the other side. This time I would be crossing alone, my mother would not be there with me to nudge me along to protect me and sacrifice herself to the crocodiles.

Once again a herd of zebras was the first to cross. I stood on a hill next to the zebra colt as we waited for more wildebeest to amass with us. Further north of me some momentum started building and I stepped in that direction but the zebra colt stayed behind me. I glanced back at him and my mothers words, Follow the zebras, rang in my head. I stopped and let the other wildebeest pass me as the started trotting and running towards the river. The zebra were crossing lower down and I started walking towards them. While the wildebeest were already running across the zebra were picking there way carefully. They paused on the bank and even waded into the water to drink before retreating to the shore to stare at the water once again. It seemed crazy to me to wade into the river up to the belly to drink water while their might be a crocodile at your hooves but they held such a calm and steady attitude towards the river that I felt comforted by their presence.

When I looked north again to where my herd was beginning to cross my eyes widened in horror. They had chosen an awful spot to cross, the banks were steep and made of crumbling dirt. I saw wildebeest leaping up the bank only to fall down onto the horns of those below them where they were pushed back into the water. Wildebeest were drowning. There was not a crocodile in sight and yet I was watching my fellow grazers die in numbers larger than I thought possible. The Great Herd had swelled as we’d massed in even greater numbers trying to find grass and there were at least five or six thousand of us crossing today. In their fear and frenzy they were killing each other. The crocodiles didn’t have to be there, they were downstream waiting.

Horror filled my heart and I almost turned and ran away from the river back into the northern brown valleys that had filled me with such loneliness. However, they held nothing for me. The zebra colt was walking down towards the river now and I followed him where I entered the water with the zebra. They had found a flat spot in the river with smooth gently sloping banks. The river was wider here but only because it was also shallower and I was able to wade across without my hooves leaving the ground.

As my feet touched the other bank I felt a thrill to be back on the side of the river that I was born on, but we were still so far north that nothing looked familiar and as I found the Matope family herd again I felt pessimistic about the future would hold.

However it was finally time for our luck to change. It rained that night, long and hard, and again the night after and the night after that. We started heading south and then a week after my second crossing we found a green valley. We stayed there for several months, regaining our strength and our spirits. I spent much more time with the zebra colt, grazing alongside him. He probably saved my life that second crossing my guiding me to the spot where the zebras were crossing.

Eventually the zebras went their own way and I can’t say that I ever saw the zebra colt again. I have joined up with many different zebra herds over my life and seen many zebra stallions but I am never sure if any of them have strip patterns quite like those of my rafiki the zebra colt.

One day, a few months after I’d turned one years old we were suddenly back in a little valley ringed by flat toppd inselbergs and a tall escarpment and I realized I was home. This little valley was green again with the rains, no longer the dry and dusty valley it had been when I’d left. I was no longer a calf though and the entire valley looked smaller. I spent the next few days revisiting all my childhood spots, the shallow dip where I’d liked to sleep, the twisted balinites tree that had cooled me off in the hot sunny afternoons, the lugga where we drank water. Though the pain of her loss was not so fresh as it had been, being back here where she had brought me into the world renewed that sorrow. I’d started to become good friends with a few other wildebeest in my cohort, the other survivors of that first migration.

I have now made more migrations than I can count and no longer does that little green valley feel like home to me, though it still does to my three youngest watoto. The older ones are learning now to recognize all the landmark we use on our great circle. The little valley is just another spot on the great circle that we make every year, just another resting point on the great journey of life. No longer does the great mara-serengeti feel unfamiliar, now every hill and mountain is a local sight and the entire great rift valley is my home. I am skilled now at following the rains, catching that faint whiff of wet on the breeze that lets me know when and where to move. I have accepted the place of The River in my life and I do not feel bitter about the inevitable deaths that it brings. I am old now and I know that one day soon my joints will not let me keep up with my children and their children, but I still have at least one more year left in me. One more year to teach my newest calf the ways of the migration and The River and the Great herd. One more year to travel with the zebras north and then south again. One more year to run wild as a wildebeest of the mara-serengeti.