Waffles and her cave

Waffles, the matriarch of our Serena North Clan, has recently found what seems to be the deepest hole in the territory to make her natal den (we think, we haven't actually seen the cubs yet). We would have never found her if it wasn't for her collar, thank you GPS points!

Hopefully, she will emerge soon with Mrs. Butterworth or Aunt Jemima (or both)!

Hyena Pillows

Over half the time, when we find a hyena, she's asleep. Now, hyenas don't just sleep anywhere- it turns out hyenas are very particular about finding a good pillow. However, pillows can be just about anything.

Termite mounds are a favorite pillow. Then gentle dirt slope of a mound makes a very good resting spot.

If no termite mound is available, sometimes a hole or depression can do the same trick.

Even mud is okay, especially on a hot day.

If there aren't any dirt pillows around grass can be a comfy pillow too.

Fellow cubs make excellent pillows if none of the other options are available.

If a hyena is all alone, their paws can be used for a pillow.

Rocks are a very commonly used pillow.

For more creative hyenas even a carcass can make a good pillow!

Or buffalo poop!

Of course, sometimes a hyena is so tired they just fall flat asleep in the middle of the road with no pillow at all.

Solar Eclipse

Two days ago we got see a rare solar eclipse- visible from most of Kenya. The sun here is extremely bright and it was impossible to see anything with naked eye but I did manage to get some good photos of the eclipse. Some thin clouds started passing in front of the sun part-way through the eclipse which actually helped darken the sun enough to be able to see the moon taking a slice out of it, but later on the clouds completely obscured the sun and we were unable to see the total eclipse. Watching the lighting change across the landscape was fascinating as the sun's light became dimmer. 

The sun still too bright to see the thin sliver that the moon was taking out of it.

Me trying to get a good photo! (Credit to Emily Thomas)

 Halfway obscured!



Almost all the way covered, but the clouds were getting darker.



This is the view we had from our "front yard". Sun covered up by clouds at this point.

Pan's ghost

Just in time for Halloween, we had a ghost in camp. Benson and I were working in the lab tent when I got a text from Emily, who’d been looking at gps points from our collared animals. She asked us whether we’d seen Pan around, since her collar was active again and had been sending in points from around the territory, though she added that there were a lot of points in camp. At first, I was really puzzled, since Pan was a hyena that died a few months before I arrived. They found her body and collected her collar and skull, but she was too far gone to determine what killed her. So now we were receiving gps points from a dead hyena all over the territory.

For a brief moment, I wondered if there was any way Pan could still be alive. After all, we’d seen some hyenas in our other two clans that had been on the missing list, most recently Muhammad Ali, who hadn’t been seen in over two and a half years. However, I’d held Pan’s skull, which seemed pretty definitive.

It was Benson who solved the mystery: We had a new collar in the darting box with the same frequency as Pan’s, and the magnet (which we use to stop collars sending out points until we deploy them) had come off. So every day when we went out with the darting supplies, the collar sent out another point from somewhere in the territory, but most of the time it was in camp. It also explained why we’d had inexplicably large amounts of interference on the tracking some mornings.

Then, last night we saw Pan’s grand-cubs and I couldn’t help but think of how much impact a single hyena can have in the future of the clan, depending on how many of their offspring survive. Maybe that’s all that Pan’s ghost was trying to tell us.

Hyenas LOVE water.

(For those of you whose internet is too slow for videos see photos below.)

This morning most of our Happy Zebra hyenas were playing in Egyptian Goose watering hole. Most hyenas seem to enjoy a little bit of splashing, and some are very timid about getting their paws wet or being splashed. Then there are those that somehow don't seem to mind water up their eyes, ears, and nose and will allow themselves to be dunked under water in addition to voluntarily sticking their heads under the water as they swim and play.

The larger adult in this video that you see in the deeper water playing with a cub is Cosby (a low-ranking adult female) and the cub is Jolly Roger (or just J-Rog for short). Her brother Swag goes in up to his belly a few times. They hyena who balances with all four paws on a grass mound is Eremet, J-Rog's subadult aunt. At the end of the video you see Andor (female cub, possibly a second or third cousin to J-Rog) being very timid about getting splashed by Cosby or J-Rog.

Here is Cosby swimming and diving. It was very fun to see such a low ranking female playing with the cubs and enjoying herself. Earlier that morning before the pool party had started she was tearing up some turf while play romping with the bigger cubs.


Some play romping and splashing.

There were some zebras present that really wanted to go to the watering hole to get a drink but with the hyenas being so absolutely crazy they weren't so sure. The cubs thought it would be really funny to chase them away.


Jolly Roger in all her dripping glory. She has a really good circle with a dot in the middle that looks like a target on her left side that makes her easy to ID from a distance.

Later on the cubs started play romping near the zebras who weren't so easily spooked this time.

Finally the zebras were able to get their turn to come and drink. Note the out of focus cubs sleeping in the foreground. Overall it was a pretty exciting morning in Happy Zebra today. Right now none of the cubs are really young enough to be at a den (except for Higgs) which means there isn't a consistent den for us to go to every morning and we haven't been seeing too many hyenas. Finding every single cub here (including Higgs who was too afraid to go into the water) was a lot of fun.

Endless Car Troubles

Hello, my name is Emily and I'm a new(ish) research assistant in Serena. I have been out here for almost three months and have yet to post to this blog – sorry about that. I think it would be crazy to try and recap my first three months here so I will just dive into what happened last night. Somehow a biology degree has not completely prepared me for work in the mara. I should have double majored in auto mechanics. 

This is KAL.

KAL doesn't like to start sometimes. My first week here Julia, Lily and I were stuck at a den one morning for hours waiting for the mechanics to come and give us a jump. Three months later, the starting problem has yet to be fixed. The immediate cause of KAL's not starting in every single case has been a low battery. We have had all the connections leading to the battery cleaned, fully charged the batteries, replaced one of the battery wires and then re-did the wiring, and rewelded the battery holders. Our mechanics suggested that the two batteries in KAL were just naturally going bad (though one was leaking some due to it's holder not being securely welded). This didn't sound right to us though because both batteries were less than a year old. Finally we gave in and bought a new battery hoping that this would either fix the problem definitely rule out a problem with “old” batteries. The cruiser worked fine with the new battery for all of two weeks before dying two days ago. This time the mechanic decided it was the starter (despite the fact that jumping the car got us back to camp) and we were hoping that it was the starter and getting that cleaned would do the trick. Lily and I didn't really think it was going to be this simple since this has been going on for months but the starter was cleaned and the car turned on, so we were happy. We tested the Cruiser a few times, turning it off on a hill and each time we were able to start her up! Woo! Maybe cleaning the starter finally did the trick!

Wrong. Last night we were at a hyena den during evening obs and after only having the lights on for 10min with the engine off we were unable to start the car. We waited a half hour with everything turned off and tried again. (When a battery is only slightly low turning a car off and letting it sit for 30min or even overnight can allow the battery to collect enough charge to start again. So next time you leave your headlights on, try waiting 30 min. before calling AAA). After 30min, still nothing, we had a very dead Cruiser. Our normal mechanic wasn't in town, Chris and Amanda (the Mara River researchers) were not in town, Chelle (Balloon pilot) wasn't around and Langot, our other mechanic, didn't have a vehicle. After calling around another balloon pilot was able to ask his balloon crew to come and jump us. An hour or so later, maybe 9:30pm, three members of the balloon crew showed up and jumped the cruiser. Everything was running and we were happy to get home and get some dinner. We thanked the crew over and over and were just happy to have a running Cruiser.

Maybe a half a mile down the road something was wrong. The fuel gauge read empty! I couldn't believe it, weren't we over a quarter tank when we left? How did that drop so fast? Soon the Cruiser was out of gas and we were once again stuck! Lily and I couldn't believe how stupid we were! Ugh! How could we not have enough diesel to make it back to camp! Stupid, stupid mzungus! Now, the maruti (our other research vehicle) has a very finicky fuel guage and a half tank sometimes means empty in that car, but KAL traditionally has a very reliable fuel guage and a quarter tank should last at least a day, including morning and evening observations, and we had over a quarter tank. We embarrassingly called the balloon crew back and asked for a second rescue. I think something was lost in translation because 30min later we were still stranded. After another embarrassing phone call to make sure the crew understood that we were stuck, again, they said they would send someone out so we didn't have to spend the night in the Cruiser.

At some point we called back to camp to let Jorgi and Moses know why we were so late. After we were rescued by the balloon crew (for the 2^nd time) we were driving down the low road feeling pretty stupid. Soon, we see a car driving slowly towards us, which was pretty unusual considering how late it was. It was Moses and Jorgi coming to rescue us in the maruti! We were extremely impressed that they had manged to drive the maruti over a kilometer from camp because the maruti is very difficult to drive if you are not very experienced with manual cars. Despite this, they had decided to try and come get us. Now feeling really bad that we had inconvenienced more people Lily and I sheepishly informed them that we had run out of diesel.

The dependable maruti to the rescue! 

This morning we headed straight up to the lodge to get diesel and brought it to the Cruiser. We figured we could just fill up the Cruiser, and jump it using the maruti and then we could just head out on morning obs. Nope. The Cruiser was dead and it was staying dead. We waited around for an hour or so to see if Langot could come check it out but he was working. We couldn't just leave the Cruiser sitting in the middle of the road so we weren't really sure what we were going to do. Luckily, a very nice photographer with a very powerful Rover drove by and offered to tow the Cruiser to the Conservancy. When we arrived at the Conservancy headquarters our mechanics were there and took a look, it turns out that not only was our brand-new battery totally drained for some reason but a connection in the fuel line became disconnected and no fuel was getting to the engine which was why jumping it this morning had failed. Great. It made me feel good at least that Langot couldnt't jump KAL either and that it wasn't for our negligence that we ran out of fuel.

Finally, with the Cruiser running and fixed up the mechanics told us to drive it around for a half hour to charge the battery a bit and then it should be okay. We drove it around and arrived back in camp. We turned it off and held our breath as we turned the key over to see if it would start again. Only a clicky noise resulted from the key turning and the Cruiser is, once again and unsurprisingly, not starting. Now I'm sure that this is a more serious problem, possibly the alternator is going bad, because a brand new battery should be charged with 30 minutes of driving. Hopefully now the mechanics will be convinced of this and we'll be able to fix it once and for all!  

Sorry for the wall of text, my next post will be shorter! 

Carcass Party

We’ve been getting frustrated at our hyenas lately because they’ve been very difficult to get to. We discovered around 70 or more wildebeest carcasses in the river near where we think the clan might be denning, and the hyenas have been ecstatic with all the free food. We think the wildebeest must have tried to cross when the river was too high and then got washed down stream. I would’ve thought this would make for a perfect situation, since well over half the clan has been spending most of their time near there, but unfortunately, the river is at the bottom of very steep banks, so we can’t get down to the water, and visibility is poor from the top. As if this was not enough, the entire area is surrounded by impenetrable bushes that the hyenas like to hide in when they aren’t busy eating the carcasses in the river. So it’s been very difficult trying to identify fifty hyenas at once based on brief glances. Nevertheless, the huge number of carcasses has been neat to watch because it draws in scavengers from all over. The first night, we saw crocodiles yanking meat off of the bloated wildebeests, and during the day, the whole area is blanketed by vultures and marabou storks. After a few days, the stench has gotten nauseating, but many of the carcasses have already been cleared away by the collective scavenging effort.

At least it's just the seal...

Leaks under the car are always a place for concern. Luckily, this time, it's only the seal that needs to be replaced.

A scary reminder

A post by Kay Holekamp. Photo courtesy of David S Green.

I stayed in from afternoon obs yesterday to work on the talks I must give in India next week. At 7 pm, I realized I had been sitting at my computer non-stop since 10am, and that my back was hurting from sitting so long in my awful desk chair, so I decided to lie down on my bed to read until my students and RAs returned from obs. I had slept badly the night before, so I soon dozed off, but I awoke shortly after 8pm when I heard a car drive into camp. I worried that I might be keeping everyone waiting for dinner, so still very groggy from my nap, I got a torch, grabbed the pile of stuff I had assembled to take to the lab tent, shut up my tent, and headed down the path toward the kitchen. I was halfway there when I heard bushes rustling violently in the 5-meter wide space between my path and the river, and then heard what sounded like galloping horses right beside me. I aimed my torch down the path just as a big bull buffalo came crashing out of the bushes about 10 meters in front of me and went charging off to my right. We had seen two buffalos grazing in camp two nights earlier, so I should have been paying more attention, and proceeding down the path much more cautiously, than I did last night. Knowing there must be a second buffalo and hearing more thundering hooves beside me, I turned around and started running back to my tent, my arms still full of papers and flash drives, when the second buffalo now crashed through the bushes and crossed the path right in front of me. He was so close that I threw down all the stuff I was carrying (sure glad I wasn’t carrying my laptop!) and tried to run back toward the lab tent in case he decided to come after me, but I promptly tripped on a root and fell down. Luckily the buffalos were both as freaked out by this encounter as I was because, down on the ground like that, I would have been very easy for either or both of them to squash. Happily for me, they both ran off into the night. Our Masai night watchman, Lusingo, came racing over from the camp driveway to where I had fallen, thinking perhaps I’d been gored. He was clearly as frightened as I was!  The Masai have a VERY healthy respect for buffalos, which among all African animals, are tied only with crocodiles and hippos for killing and maiming the most humans! But after Lusingo helped me collect all my papers and flash drives from the dusty path, he scolded me for not shining my torch around laterally as I was heading down the path, and he was absolutely right. I was very foolish, and as a result, got a major scare that I won’t soon forget! I was lucky this time, but the next buffalo I encounter on my path might not be so forgiving of my stupidity. At the dinner table, I told my students what had happened, and I can only hope that they will learn from my mistake so they don’t make it themselves.

Ratchet enjoying a good back scratch...

Ratchet is the lowest ranking natal male in North clan, but he enjoys coming to the den to visit the cubs and have a good roll in the dirt of course! Emily and I were impressed with his good balance.