Saw a puff adder yesterday, crawling across the road out of the woods next to our camp. Makes me feel nervous to realize that there really IS venomous snakes in the area around camp. Makes me think twice about stumbling into the woods to pee every morning. I’m usually not all that alert when walking around camp at night. I think out here its very easy to feel very complacent and safe even in camp and then when you see an elephant right outside your tent one night its kind of a reality check. Dave and Wes were discussing the likelihood of surviving a walk in daylight from Egyptian goose watering hole back to camp which is about 10km and I think they decided on 30% with the main factor being if they encountered buffalo or not. In the car buffalo are not very dangerous at all, as far as I can tell they never charge just stand and stare or run away. We drove straight through the middle of a herd of 300 buffalo yesterday in the Maruti when I went with Dave on a loop of his territory. On foot though is probably an entirely different story. 

However I still have a hard time believing it would be that low…there’s not usually any animals right on the road and even predators are very shy and would likely run away. Elephants and buffalo are pretty easy to see and could be avoided if careful. Maasai herders walk through the park regularly though they create quite a bit of noise and disturbance with their cows but even rangers will walk from the gate to their camp several kilometers away on regular basis, granted they carry rifles with them, but how often do they use them? I think by default I err on the side of things being fine (my occasionally destructive optimism) but being charged by elephants multiple times has made me more cautious about them, and seeing the number of car problems we have out here has definitely made me a better and more cautious driver.

Wes is leaving in a few days to vacation with his family in Italy and Dave, Julie, and the IRES students only have about a week left here before they trade with Julia, Emily, and another IRES student. Dave and I have been experimenting with calorie-restriction and fasting for the health benefits such as longevity, resistance to cancer, and lower-stress. But I have to be careful to not start losing weight! So we'll see if I can keep it up without Dave in camp to motivate me anymore. 

We found Marten today, Wes, Julie, and Moira found her yesterday for the first time this month which is a huge relief because it means that we haven’t lost a collar and Korben won’t be orphaned, though he is just barely old enough that he could make it even though he is still nursing. She led both cars on a goose chase around south until Dave decided to call it quits around 9:30. Hopefully we’ll find her again tomorrow so we can replace her collar! She is the lowest ranking animal in south so she’s ideal to have a collar on and the other lower ranking females don’t have cubs so they would not be good collar candidates. 

More missing cubs...

So we are starting to think that Ana, Lady, BilJ, and Crim are all dead also. Uzi is still questionable because he’s the oldest and might really not be at the den anymore. However the parents of these four cubs in addition to Dr.P have not been at the den and though these cubs are old enough to be graduating they should still be spending time at the den. Likely lions got them. There are many many lions over here in Serena. I’m starting to regret spotting them because it means that we will have to ‘waste’ valuable research time driving over to them and waiting for them to lift their heads so that we can get ID shots. It’s still pretty cool to see lions but they are really really boring sometimes. They will not even twitch an ear for hours. On the other side of the mara there are a lot less lions because the human disturbance is so high. Conversely because of the disturbance (cattle grazing and tourism) the hyena population has exploded to over 100 animals in a single clan, the largest clan in recorded history. Over here the largest clan is maybe 30 animals. It’s very strange to think that these cubs that I spent so much time getting to know may never be seen again.

Today I drove out to the Oloololo gate with Jorgi to get water. Oloololo is beautiful, great to see some different scenery. We haven’t had too much rain in the last week and we are out of drinking water. We can drink the serena water but it is dirtier and tastes salty. Still potable, but just not tasting very good. However the rain water isn’t amazing either because it tastes like tarp.

Been having a lot of fun with the IRES students and Julie. Moira, Julie, and I named a track and a plain the seven dwarves track and the snow white plain. We’ve been giving landmarks dwarf names, we have Happy Umbrella Tree, Sleepy Lion Mound, Grumpy Baby Elephant Crossing, and Sneezy Trees so far. Been playing a lot of pombe pong, drinking Stoney’s, singing songs, and being goofballs. .

Also saw a lioness hunting today. She didn’t make a kill but it was still super cool to watch her muscle tense and she very carefully placed each foot in front of the other. Her target was a topi laying down for a nap. However the impala saw the lion and spooked which alerted the topi who eventually saw her also and trotted off. 

Hyena darting!

Good day yesterday, we found and darted Digs! We had a quiet morning at the den but very soon encountered a hyena walking down the stankho track and set up for a target trial before even IDing her. Once she got closer we were delighted to recognize that right c notch in Digs’ ear. Four tourist cars were driving up so we ended up cutting the trial short but we called Dave and started following Digs until Dave arrived. She led us halfway across the territory and it seemed like we would lose her a few times but after she crossed Mgorro lugga but before she got to Mega Junction she turned off the road into the short grassy area near leopard tree. It was the perfect place, no water nearby that she could get in trouble to and short grass for easy sighting. Apparently she walked right up the cruiser and then turned sideways and gave Dave the perfect shot.

Super neat to see a hyena up close and touch her ears and paws. She didn’t want to give us blood at first so we did teeth measurements and body length measurements, got her weight, did bacterial swabs of just about every orifice, noted scars, pulled off a few ticks, tried to collect milk (with no luck, but its usually hard to get any milk with giving a oxytocin injection), posed and took photos, and finally at the end Dave hit a good vein and we collected seven vacutainers of blood, 3 whole blood, 2 for serum and 2 for plasma. Then we loaded her up into the back of the cruiser and Moira, Emily, and I rode in the back with her while we drove to the darting drop off spot. It’s a spot in a little bit of sheltered woods far away from anything she could get into trouble with. She was starting to wake up and lift her head some but telazol is a drug that wears off very slowly so no worries. It puts them in a drunken dreamy state while also having an amnesiac effect so that they won’t remember being poked and prodded.

Yesterday evening we drove back to that area and there was no sign of Digs and we weren’t picking up her signal from her new collar which is typically a good thing because it means that she came out of it enough to move a good distance. However, we won’t breathe easy until we see her alive and well.

This morning we went out to Happy Zebra, and the den was very quiet. Nice to get out and watch a happy zebra sunrise after doing just north and south mornings for the last three weeks (in hopes of darting). Lots of zebra and hazy sunrise which meant we could watch the perfect sphere of the sun coming up over the horizon. No hyenas anywhere but we did see a cheetah mom and cub! Cub was just starting to get big but still gray and fluffy and playful. Super adorable, we followed them for about thirty minutes before heading in.     

Not quite a clan war...

Almost a  clan war two days ago. Dave was getting GPS points from the collared females way up on the border of their territory, further than I’ve ever looked for hyenas let alone seen one and many of the females at the den were looking pretty fucked up. Everyone was gimpy and covered with little wounds. Dave didn’t think it looked like they were fighting lions because many of them had wounds around their face and mouth whereas lions would usually attack the back of a hyena. Julie, Moira, and I drove up to the location Dave suggested and found our north hyenas chasing and being chased by a bunch of unrecognizable hyenas that we called the Oloololo hyenas because that is the direction of the Oloololo gate and mountains.

There was not any physical contact, just hyenas whooping and masses of hyenas moving forward and backwards vying for control of the area. Something smelled absolutely rank and there were a lot of vultures around which made me wonder if a hyena had been killed in the fighting. After a while though the Oloololo hyenas backed off and the north hyenas started meandering towards the north west in the direction the Oloololo hyenas had gone. The smell was getting worse and then we saw it. A dead elephant. It’s massive body was on its side and the hyenas had already made a good hole in its rear and at the base of the neck. Skin was beginning to be peeled back off its ribcage. There were at least twenty Oloololo hyenas on and around the carcass.

While we waited and watched the Oloololo animals sated themselves and started leaving and before long the North clan hyenas started moving in. Less than an hour after we arrived they managed to chase the Oloololo animals off the carcass and started gorging themselves. So the fight was over this elephant carcass right on the border- not a clan war after all.

As the sun got hotter and higher the North animals started getting fat and they would occasionally peel off and go lie down in mud puddle to keep cool before coming back to keep eating. For some of them this mud puddle was clearly just a necessary but annoying distraction from the carcass, they had obviously taken all of two seconds to flop over and get right back up again without wasting any time.

Over the last few days it seems like North and Oloololo have been taking turns at this elephant, and so far no lions have shown up to take over.

Saw several lions and a cheetah yesterday in addition to two leopard teases. Twice in one day we drove over to where some cars were clustered only to be told that a leopard had just been there but was now gone. We had to take their word for it because if a leopard does not want to be seen you won’t see it.

Also we have good reason to believe that Dr. Pepper (or Dr. P for short) is dead. We haven’t seen him in at least three weeks, which wouldn’t be all that unusual because he is getting to the age where he will be making short trips away from the den, but his mother has been around the den a lot with no sign of him. These last three days Ema has shown clear signs to me of being in mourning. She has been at the den with a restless motion in her gait as she gazes around and into the distance- where is her cub? She has been grooming any little cub that comes up to her and her teats are full of milk, undrank. In uncertain confusion she licks the other cubs that greet her and only pulls away with reluctance when they smell her milk. Last night little Rama was the center of her attention and when Rama started to nurse from her this seemed to trigger her parenting instinct and she laid down and let this unrelated cub have her milk, grooming her back while Rama suckled. If Ema does not know where Dr. P is then he is surely dead. It broke our hearts to watch Ema wandering around the den hopefully sniffing every cub that came her way even though she knew that not one of them was her own Dr. P.

On another note- still no luck with darting and Dave only has another week or two left! We’re hoping to catch Saur or Digs leaving the elephant carcass but we’re starting to worry that Marten is dead since it’s been a month since we’ve seen her and she was not at either of two carcasses that we’ve seen south clan at. However Marten is a low-ranking female and low ranking animals might not show their faces for several months at a time. 

Elephants in camp last night...

Not much happening in the last few days. Hi-lux had a few leaks and the cruiser is still waiting for more break repairs so we’ve been stuck with just the maruti for a few days and rain kept us in all day yesterday. Been playing lots of settlers and broke out the bananagrams last night.

Had a good north morning today. I got to track TNSL and practically ran over her so I was spot on with the direction of the beeps. Only my second time ever tracking an animal (putting on headphones and listening to beeps) and the first time I pretty much knew where Sherman was before we tracked her so that didn’t really count. I was glad that I was able to drive straight towards her without much problem! Also got the hi-lux stuck and unstuck in the mud and am feeling very proud of my mud driving abilities. The track was very soggy and even avoiding the previous tracks did not help, put it in low four and was able to rock it out shifting into 1 and reverse very quickly. Also had to boost the engine a little bit, revving with the clutch in then popping the clutch to get some extra power and we made it!

Also saw a cheetah, that old decrepit female that was the first cheetah I saw. This was nearly the same spot too, right on the road that leads to our driveway. That cheetah must be ancient. 

Elephants in camp all last night, kept everyone awake with chewing, crashing, stepping on branchs, pushing on trees, pooping and farting. Everyone v. groggy today at breakfast. 

Flat tires and tracking Saur.

Slept in after the kill due to rain. Julie had a busy day IDing animals while I had a busy day bringing first the cruiser up to the lodge to get the brake booster reinstalled and then the hi-lux to have Sampson look at a leak. Endless car problems! And then last night we got a flat on the hi-lux after going over a large rock and spent an hour fixing it. Just after we’d gotten a text from Wes telling us to be back early because Chelle (shelly) was coming over for dinner! We finally made it back, one hour late, at nine for a delicious dinner of burgers. Exciting morning today but ended very anti-climaticly because Saur led us all over north territory for two hours. We spotted her fairly early on after checking out the den with her two subadult cubs Koala and Spec and another adult female Angi. They were wandered south and kept up a good walk but we were luckily able to follow even through some rocky bits. Eventually it looked like they were heading to the den and I did the most off-roading I have ever done. Saur hung out at the den for a while driving us crazy, Dave was ready with the rifle from about twenty minutes after we first saw them but her constant movement kept us from getting a good moment. So finally she leaves the den and sacks out but our angle is bad and along comes Angi again who gets Saur up and then they all disappear over a hill covered in thickets that we cannot follow. Extremely tantalizing but super cool to learn about the darting process. 

Hyena kill!

Saw my first hunt and kill last night and it was incredible! We left just hoping to get a Target trial in, where Julie sets out her model hyena and measures the reaction of another hyena. We were thinking of driving some tracks and hitting the burned area around 6. So I decided to take SST and follow the tracks that spit us out right across from the burned area. Started off on the track that leads to south1 transect and had to cut across some grass to get over to the SST track. Once safely on SST it was very quiet, not even an antelope! We hit an intersection that I wasn’t sure about, but thought maybe it led up to the den while straight would take us where we wanted. However soon after passing the track to the right it started to get really soggy. We had about 6mm of rain the evening before and this area is often still soggy even when everything is dry. After making it through one soggy patch we hit another and I didn’t want to push my luck so I decided to try the track that I was hoping was the back way into the den. Luckily it was so I wasn’t too lost and we hit the main road just a little past 6.

The game plan changed quick when we had a hyena come loping past us fast, cross the road in a blink and continue on. Hoping to get an ID shot and see where he was heading in a rush I turned off-road and revved up to 25kmp to follow him. Lucky for me this area was very flat with short grass and no rocks so we went FLYING across the plain. He kept up the pace and then we saw another hyena loping in the same direction on the opposite hill. And then two more appeared from other directions. Now it was getting exciting! With at least 6 hyenas visible all heading towards one spot we hurried along until it started getting rocky. Forced to go down into one we meandered around a little bit until the rocks disappeared, however now the grass was long obstructing visibility. Luckily (notice how many luckily’s there are in this post?) the GPS indicated that something called Sneaky crossing was about 200m northwest of us. A crossing meant that someone had driven over here before and that that was a good way across the lugga that separated us from the opposite hill where most of our lopers were. So I made my way over to Sneaky X and it was rather soggy but didn’t have any ruts or visible obstructions, so I backed up, put the car in 4 and revved across it safely. 

Now we could see a massive herd of buffalo at the top of this hill and at least ten hyenas had a group of maybe 7 adults and 2 calves separted off from the rest of the herd. We got as close as we dared (the buffalo were riled up) and started filming. A hunt in process! A group that fluctuated between 3 and 5 hyenas were testing this small group and chasing some of the adults. We couldn’t tell at the time but it seemed liked they had already targeted a calf and possibly injured it before/when we arrived. Its mother was trying to defend it but it disappeared from sight in the tall grass several times and we kept confusing it with the uninjured calf. After watching the hyenas spar with the adult buffalo for maybe ten twenty minutes suddenly the hyenas all converged slightly lower down hill on the calf which was as far as we could tell dead immediately. The adult buffalo and remaining  calf moved off back towards the main herd. Almost instantly the seven hyenas on the calf were drenched in blood. Two subs were trying to get in there but we repeatedly aggressed on while males and low rankings hung out around the periphery waiting for scraps. The grass was not too bad and we had a good view. I was only able to ID Saw, Pike, NatG, and Muon in the craziness but I was sure Boom, Arb, and Erem were there as well and I did ID arb later on. Eventually the subs split the carcass and there were more furious growls and bristle tails and biting aggressions. 

A massive thunderstorm was building behind us and all the hyenas were on edge, trying to eat as much as possible before any other predators could show up and take the kill. The storm was very orange and brown looking at one point and you could see lightning flashing in the distance. The buffalo herd disappeared into the fading light while the hyenas got redder and their bellies became bloated. Eventually the rain started splattering down and the hyenas were alarm rumbling mixed in with the thunder. Likely some of the alarm rumbles were false alarms so that the subs/low rankers could steal a bite. Within an hour the carcass was reduced to just a few spread out pieces that various animals were munching on. Probably the most amazing thing I have ever seen, the bright red of the blood was stunning and stark and the air of energy and excitement was palpable. Darkness and rain forced us to leave and by then almost everything had been devoured. This was a night to remember. Most RAs and grad students have only seen one hunt or kill and we were lucky to get to see most of the process minus the actual death of the calf. 

Full camp!

Getting behind on journaling! Evening of my last entry we had Julie and Dave show up with their IRIS students Mora and Emily respectively. Nice to have other people in camp. Also been fun because I’ve been going out with either Julie or Dave so I feel like I’m actually earning my keep here and doing some real RA work without Wes! Julie, Mora, and Emily are all really nice and seem pretty cool so I think it’ll be a good month. 

Next month we will have Julia back with her IRIS student and also Emily, a grad student from U of Penn who is here to get some field experience. She is doing things with dog cognition that seem pretty exciting. Especially since Kay emailed and me and suggested that I focus on cognition which I hadn’t really even considered as an option since that was always Zoe’s thing and prenatal/temperament seemed to fit in with Kay’s lab better. But I’m stoked to be doing similar things to Zoe and with hyenas no less!! So reading up as much as possible on cognition and on the NSF application process, the deadline is in november which is going to come up quick I know. I want to write first drafts by September at least. Zoe is jealous but she is already ahead of me in cognition so even though I am going to be very familiar with my subjects (where as zoe is unfamiliar with bears) I have less practical experience doing cognition research. Also cognition research you get to do a certain amount of operant condition which is essentially training so yay!!! Kay thinks it will be possible to modify a lot of things that they are doing with dog cognition with hyenas. By they I think predominantly Brian O’Hare’s dog cognition lab (which Zoe actually applied to once I think).

Got some pouring rain last night and everyone got soaked running from the cars to the tent. Wes did a drop off with Talek this morning so we have settlers now!! Got in a good game this morning, with six of us we paired up experienced players to inexperienced and Julie and I won. She had played before so maybe we had a bit of an advantage. Julie is doing some neat work using a foam hyena (archery target) named Target of course and measuring the responses of hyenas to him.

Saw four lions yesterday, two of them were relaxing in the morning and when we went back in the evening an adult female had joined them along with another sub. This adult lioness was absolutely beautiful, old and scarred but very regal. There was a big male sub and two smaller subs, one female and one unknown. We had them all to ourselves for at least twenty minutes before they all got up and started play romping. When they crossed the road many other tourist vehicles showed up and we’d gotten our ID shots so we moved on after that.

Dave is trying to dart Sauer in north territory and Marten in south territory. Sauer because we have one more collar for north (and Zoey is likely dead) and Marten because her collar has stopped working. We saw Sauer last night before we saw the lions and this morning Dave, Julie, and Emily found her again and called Mora and I who rushed out of south to north territory only to find that she had disappeared into a lugga with tall grass where Dave was unable to dart. So we sat around for an hour hoping she would move with no luck. Super excited to see a darting so I hope Dave is successful with at least one of the two females while he’s here. 

Finally a carcass session at South!

Oof breakfast did not sit too well with me yesterday, my lower intestines are still recovering from a few days ago. Slept it off, skipped lunch, and went out last night to south. The night of the 5^th we spent over an hour driving around the north western part of north territory with the radio on full blast trying to pick up any sign of Zoe but got nothing. However the radios have not been very reliable these past few days, still work, but I guess there are times when something in the atmosphere just makes the reception sketchy. Maybe its related to the haziness?

Dave was supposed to be back last night with another grad student Julie (not Julia) and two undergrad students but the car’s engine exploded in Nairobi and they’ve had to rent a car, so hopefully they’ll be in tonight! Better shave my legs and try to look like a human ha ha. Though maybe I’m getting used to hairy legs, nice to feel the breeze.

Carcass session this morning at South so I finally got to see some hyenas. Spent a quiet morning at the den with no sign of any cubs. Thoughts start to wander as the sky gradually gets lighter and usually go something like this: topi. Ah..another topi. That’s a big rock, maybe an elephant. Yes.. moving must be an elephant. No just buffalo. Wonder what those birds are making a ruckus about…

Perspective is funny out here, once something is more than 100m away it’s hard to judge the size. Once the sun came up we started driving a loop and found a male hyena that Wes didn’t recognize looking quite fat with a bloody face. So we drove up the hill and found half the clan with the skin and ribs of something. Think I might be starting to recognize Clovis, the retired matriarch, Java, now confirmed as the new alpha, Cheez Whiz, Nali, and Sula. Java was controlling the session and her sub aggressed on Clovis’s sub which also indicated that Clovis has fallen in rank now while Slinky mostly stayed on the outskirts meaning we can definitely confirm that Slinky is not taking over the alpha position.  

First siafu encounter...

Went out last night to south territory; there were two cubs at Hatch Den, likely Bron and Star, but no sign of any adult hyenas all evening. A few jackals and that was about it.

This morning however we saw a cheetah, had a bunch of hyenas at the den and saw a few more hyena while we drove around doing prey transects! Very very hazy these past few days, there’s been a lot of smoke coming from Tanzania so not sure if its related to that or if it’s just seasonal or what. Blue skies above and very chilly nights but the haze doesn’t lift like fog so who knows.

Got my first siafu encounter this morning. Not sure where I picked them up but by the time I was sitting down on the choo there were little ants crawling on my feet and I brought quite a few back to my tent with me. Luckily once they start to bite they are very obvious and easy to kill and I killed at least five on me and then another ten more in my tent as I watched them emerge from my pajamas! We had some good rain last evening before and during obs and the siafu usually come out after a rain.  

Clay gets her comeuppance.

Feeling MUCH better this morning, ate a full breakfast, but still feeling a little weak/under the weather. Did not go on obs this morning. Just not feverish anymore yay. Bit of sore throat for some reason. Guts still a little rumbly but I am considerably improved, hopefully I will feel well enough to go out on obs! Feeling behind on work, still have a transcription to do and have to go back and edit several others as well as double check an alien male against males from other clans, update the cub list, and also today is the day we upload tracks from the GPS units and backup the computer, AND do car checks. So I hate that all I feel like doing is being flopped out in bed.

A little more to stay about happy zebra the night before last night now that I am feeling well enough for detailed writing! Got to watch the happy zebra hyenas have a good play-boat! Arbalet and Eremet showed up at the den, they are Pike’s subadult daughters, older sister to Clay. Clay is an adorable little cub, Pike’s youngest and therefore currently first in line for the throne. Julia calls her a JAP, jewish-american princess because she is a lazy spoiled little cub! She is bigger than euch and bac who are a little older than her and has a distinctive reddish coat. She is usually the last one out of the den when we arrive and one of the last to investigate new objects (along with moji, the oldest cub). It seems like the calmer cubs and also less inquisitive, maybe being inquisitive is a high-risk/high-payoff strategy that works better for lower ranking animals? Anyway no mom’s are at the den, just Clay’s older sisters and everyone starts running around like crazy and suddenly the game is: get clay! Hilarious, because usually she is the cub that can play bite and pester anyone and get away with it because her mom will back her up. To use Wes’ words she was at one point “drawn and quartered” by four cubs, eremet (the rougher but subordinate sister) had her by the scruff of the neck and other cubs were all tugging on her in different directions. Poor clay! It sometimes surprising me how hard they will pull on each other’s skin without drawing blood, although even young cubs will sometimes show up one session with a good ear nick or notch, presumably from rough play. Pike’s lineage is weapons and she currently has four daughters (all girls!) the youngest being clay, followed by Arb and Erem, and the oldest is Boom who has her first two cubs at the den, both a little older than Clay:  JRog and Swag. Boom’s lineage is “things pirate’s say” and her cubs full names are Jolly Roger and Scallywag who are Pike’s grandcubs. These two cubs are often the first up to the car and they will try and lick/bite your elbow if you’re not careful!

A recent documentary that I watched “eternal enemies” about hyenas and lions talked about how hyenas will commit siblicide, which may or may not be true, and also that when a cub is moved from its natal den to the communal den “they will have to fight for their lives” which is almost certainly not true. I, nor anyone I’ve talked to, has seen real aggression between cubs. They may play rough but it is very clearly distinguishable from real aggression. And cub duos that we see at the den certainly display no aggression towards each other and are in fact usually friendlier and closer with each other than with unrelated cubs. Once a cub duo graduates it is also common to see them together, such as Arb and Erem showing up at the communal den together even though they are both almost full grown. However hyenas have no qualms about eating their dead, and if a mother does not have enough milk for two, or the other cub dies before coming to the communal den for other reasons there would be nothing to stop the sibling from feeding on it. A mother does not always give birth to two cubs, so a singleton does not mean that its sibling did not live. Hyenas have been documented to give birth to one, two, or three cubs. 

Wes saw Trumane at the Hatch den in south territory yesterday which is a good sign for that really being the current den because Trumane is Boyk’s mom. Boyk is the youngest cub in south clan, the only one that is really too young to have graduated and who we have seen no sign of since the rain’s stopped and the tracks dried up enough for us to get into south territory. I’ve gotten so familiar with all the different hyenas in happy zebra and in north clan but I am only barely acquainted with south clan and I don’t think I’ve seen any south hyenas more than once except for Marten and her cub Korben, away from the den but still nursing. 

Sick day... June 3rd

Sick today, finally came down with the thing everyone gets when they come out here. Luckily not too bad though, woke up around 4 with the shits and feeling like shit, pretty much slept all day. Still feeling kind of feverish.

Last night was a good evening for obs, saw two cheetahs where a bunch of cars were stopped and Wes invited some of the tourists to happy zebra den. They showed up for about ten minutes, just enough to see the cubs before taking off. On the drive home saw another serval! This one stayed where it was, crouching by the edge of the road as we pulled up, beautiful little creature, I think my favorite besides the hyenas.

Feeling useless lying in bed all day, I want to get out and see the hyenas, but it’s a good thing I came down with this before Dave gets back and the camp gets busy. Watched a lizard scamper around the canvas roof of my tent, watched the shadows of the trees, was mostly too tired to even get on my computer.  Got a very sweet call from Allan, the guy who works up at the lodge, asking how I was doing.                                                         

Looks like south clan is using Hatch Den!

We finally found some cubs at a den in south territory last night! At first we assumed it was boyk, the youngest cub, as some of the older ones may have graduated the den, but we soon IDed Star and Sula, at Hatch Den, not at lighthouse den where the cubs were last. There was also someone whooping in the lugga. Hatch Den has the misfortune (or fortune) to be situated on a mound that it somewhat a part of this lugga and has a nice good ditch on all sides of it that I am sure fills with water when the lugga is high. It also has several large bushes on top of it obscuring visibility. Doing obs when this den is busy must be a pain in the ass! However we were able to make out two cubs close to graduating age and I got some photos that were good enough to ID star and indicate the other cub as sula or bron. 

At the top of the hill across the lugga we also got some tantalizing glimpses of five more hyenas, including a collared female. They were too far for us to ID and in order to cross the lugga and get up the hill we’d have to go around the def leppard crossing and then attempt to find a route off-road back to this hill. So we left them unID, but this is still the most action I’ve seen in south territory yet! Nice to know that not all of south’s cubs have disappeared. However, as Wes points out we are now obligated to check and wait at this den every time we go to south now, and if these cubs ARE graduated but were just chilling there for one day that will make for a lot of boring sessions. But if we’re lucky and the clan IS using Hatch den then hopefully we will see more hyenas there.

This morning we got to see LogC nurse her little black cub, the tiniest most adorable thing ever, though Wes assures me that I will see tinier ones before my year is out. Now that we’ve confirmed his ID we can officially give him a name and a date first seen. Wes has chosen Costanza after a character from a tv show he likes. We still have to wait and see what gender this little guy is though.

Went up to the lodge for water today (the salty non-drinking water) and talked to James the manager of the lodge for a bit since we have to ask permission to get water and got his phone number and have been told to invite him to fisi camp. And just as I am writing this I just got a text from allen, a guy who works at the lodge asking for my facebook! Everyone is very friendly but I am soo shy! However it is good to get to know local guys and Allen is also maasai which is neat. I am feeling more comfortable talking to everyone at the lodge and the gate but I am not nearly as sociable as Wes, who also (to my ear) sounds very fluent in Swahili. I’m getting there though!