What else is out there at night besides hyenas?

Here are a few photos from our Shompole camera traps to give you an idea of the diversity of life-forms wandering around there at night. See if you can identify all these animals. I'll post answers in my next blog entry.

In the Mara, expect the unexpected

Carnivores.

They're big, scary, and they eat a lot of meat, right? Well, not always. Jackals sometimes seem to be the exception to these rules.

Not long ago, I happened upon this hungry jackal who was sniffing around a warthog and her babies, looking for a little morning bacon.


Naturally, you'd think the warthogs would flee the scene to save their hide. Nope...the tiniest piggie lunged at the jackal, launching him into obvious panic mode.


Not so big and scary, I guess. He ended up slinking off into the tall grass, sans breakfast (and probably with a bit less personal pride than he had started with).

This morning, we saw a jackal who seemed to be feeding on some little bits of bone. Ever the opportunists, jackals often consume the miniscule leftover scraps that lions and hyenas may ignore.


On closer inspection, however, we saw that the jackal wasn't eating scraps after all...it seems that mushrooms were the delicacy of the day. The onset of the rainy season has caused fungi to pop up everywhere, and this jackal was feasting on a whole crop of little white mushrooms.

I'm pretty sure there's a moral to all these jackal stories...if you can't bring home the bacon, you'd better be willing to investigate other options.

Happy Valentine's Day...

...from Mama Fisis in the lab to Mama and Bwana Fisis in the Mara. Hope everyone finds as much love as these animals!

A new day dawns on the hippo...

Here's the hippo, day 2. A LOT of meat is gone, in a bit over 24 hours! You can see the ribs are exposed, so just the meat along the backbone, as well as some scraps near the head, are left.


The lions, completely stuffed after collectively consuming several thousand pounds of meat, were lying in the bushes nearby. One greedy lioness didn't like the vultures feeding on "her" carcass. Every time the vultures wound descend, she would drag her painfully fat body up, and chase them off. She'd then return immediately to the shade to sleep off the indigestion from which she must have been suffering. You can see her in the corner of this picture, just after she scared all the vultures away.


This jackal was a bit luckier than the vultures, and somehow managed to snag an entire hippo leg for himself. Despite the leg being bigger than he is, he tried valiantly to drag it away from the scene to keep it safe from other scavengers. Needless to say, he didn't make much progress.


Our hyenas have been lurking around, waiting for a good opportunity to make a move, but the lions' presence hasn't given them their chance...yet.

It's all fun and games until someone gets trampled by an angry buffalo

Hyenas are very curious about other species, this much is clear. Below is a photo of a hyena investigating a marabou stork, a large scavenging bird that I like to think of as “hands down the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

The next photos are of a group of hyenas we saw this morning, all very curious about a sleeping buffalo. Since they’ve certainly seen buffalo before, it seemed like they were playing a game of chicken, daring each other to see who could get the closest. Although these games are usually played by the cubs and subadults, a couple adults were even getting in on the action today. It was pretty hilarious: they’d tiptoe closer and closer, and if the buffalo even twitched its tail they would all freak out and back off. Then they’d get their courage up again and the game would repeat. Truthfully, I’m not sure the buffalo was even aware that it was involved in the game, since it was facing the other direction.

But that game paled in comparison to one we saw a couple weeks ago between a teenage hyena and an adult jackal. When we arrived, the hyena was chasing the jackal, which seemed strange since jackals are not typical hyena prey. But then we realized it was just a game—the hyena was chasing the jackal round and round a big bush (which begs the question, who really was chasing whom?). Our initial impression was that this was great fun for the hyena, but not so much for the traumatized jackal. Oh how wrong we were—the hyena stopped to catch its breath for a moment, and the jackal stood, looked at it, then ran it it teasingly and darted away at the last second, just like my dog does when he wants me to chase him. The jackal did this a few times until the hyena acquiesced and the game resumed around the bush. At one point they even switched directions mid-chase without breaking a stride. Sadly, it was too dark to get any photos or videos, but I think you get the idea.

This last photo is of a stand-off between an adult hyena and a wildebeest. They stood staring at each other like this for several minutes before going their separate ways, no love lost.

A scavenging saga

Who doesn’t like freebies? As we've said, it's a pretty good strategy to get a meal without having to expend any energy hunting or waste any time ambushing. Therefore, many carnivores in the Mara scavenge at least some of the time, and there’s a lot of competition for free meals out here. This morning, we watched a fascinating drama unfold between several scavengers.

We happened upon a freshly-dead male impala that must have succumbed to starvation or disease. A lucky black-blacked jackal had been among the first to find the carcass, and it was hungrily feasting on the impala’s hindquarters when we arrived.


Soon, two species of vulture (White-backed and Rüppell’s Griffon) began to arrive from all directions, and within minutes, over 40 vultures had descended upon the impala. The jackal was clearly outnumbered and was driven away after just a few minutes of feeding. The frenzied vultures mobbed the carcass immediately, fighting like crazy for access to the meat.


There’s a specific hierarchy among vulture species, and here in the Mara, the Lappet-faced Vulture is king. With its large body, short muscular neck, and strong bill, this vulture can dominate the other species. When two of these bullies arrived on the scene, they swooped down and attacked the other vultures, who quickly gave way. The carcass had changed hands again, and the Lappet-faced were now in control.


But the saga wasn’t over yet. Three lions came trotting over the hill towards us, probably attracted by the vultures’ hysterical vocalizations. The largest lioness strode confidently to the carcass, and the vultures scattered. She began to drag the impala away and finally settled down in the tall grass about 80 meters away, in sole possession of the carcass. She ate quietly as the jackal, the vultures, and the two other lions watched from a distance.


What’s the moral of the story? Take whatever you can out here, but eat fast and stay vigilant. That carcass may seem like an easy meal, but there are formidable scavengers everywhere, thinking the very same thing about that very same carcass.