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.