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.