With The Rain Came...

     Throughout the past two months we’ve been hearing rumors and talk of threatening, impending weather heading our way. Here in Talek camp, it has inevitably arrived. From scattered showers to now daily downpours, we’ve been wet, muddy, and stuck in camp more often than not. Thus far in November we’ve experienced well over 100mm of rain… and we’re only halfway through the month! The storms, rain, and wetness have brought much to do, see, and learn…

Lone Tree Plain has been the ideal spot for watching systems develop... 

     The night of 02 November, Talek camp was shaken by the scare of a flood. With the looming fear of a repetition of the ‘Great Flood of 2015’ that happened in June, we’d been preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. As the rain continued throughout the day the guys and I had been wary of the water level of the Talek River. As camp is situated right along the body of water, the steadily rising levels led us to take action early. With newly created flood protocols, we evacuated the kitchen tent and began saving valuable research supplies and data from the lab tent immediately. We sought refuge at the highest point in camp along our firebreak, also the furthest from the river. With the kitchen and lab tent valuables safe and dry, and maybe a little too hopped up on coffee, the guys and I continuously checked the river throughout the night. For several hours the water crept closer and closer to the kitchen, reaching within 2m, but by this point our early action paid off. Eventually we began to see the water recede and could relax a tad, knowing that at least for the night, a flood was not in store for us. The next morning we decided it best to put up a new tent while the stormy weather continues to threaten. Learning valuable lessons in kisou (knife) maneuvering, I helped the guys put up this new haven and our temporary kitchen was born.

Situated safely on the highest ground of camp, our temporary kitchen has stayed dry and proven reliable. 

     Whilst the weather has trapped us in camp a bit, when we have made it out to the territory the products of heavy rain have made themselves quite apparent, and enjoyably so! The rain has transformed the dry, dead plains into lush, green oases that have invited the return of many animal species and the sighting of moisture-loving flora as well. 

With the heavy rain, this small white flower (Cycinium tubulosum) can now be seen all over our territory. From a distance, it appears as if tissue paper has been dropped here and there, giving it the common name of Waste Paper flower, or as we call it here in Talek, Takataka flower, meaning 'trash' flower in Swahili. Despite its name, it has become quite abundant and we've commonly spotted baboons munching away and grabbing a handful with each step as their troop roams around.

On Halloween morning we managed to make it out of camp. It was the first time I'd seen fog here in the Mara and it was easily the thickest fog I've witnessed. As the sun rose we noticed these beautiful lilies scattered around! Educating me as always, Benson informed me that the Pyjama lily (Crinum kirkii) emerges and blossoms following heavy rains.
A moisture-loving plant indeed, the lily made for a glorious Halloween sighting. 

     Since my arrival in June, the ponds and luggas have never been so full of water, a transition eagerly welcomed by the resident species. The wildebeests had been absent from the Talek area for a while, but the rain has seemed to draw them back in hoards. Likewise, zebras, gazelles, and giraffes have been roaming around in higher abundance than usual. Lately, we’ve been spotting more juveniles of many species as well. Baby black-backed jackals, zebra, warthogs, and topi have been found all over the place! 

This black-backed jackal pup was enjoying a drink of water before we spotted him.

This young zebra and the rest of her herd were seen drinking from newly formed watering holes. 

Warthogs tend to be extremely wary and dart away (tail always raised!) almost immediately with an approaching vehicle.
To our surprise, this mother and her nursing young remained still long enough to snap this photo. 

We spotted this juvenile topi grazing with her mother in a lush plain following some heavy rain.
Notice the takataka flowers! They most definitely resemble bits of trash, wouldn't you say?

      The rain has also enhanced the breadth of my Swahili, forcing me to learn terms related to the recent weather. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the addition of the following to my vocabulary: mvua (rain), majimaji (wet), mawingu (clouds), matope (mud), upesi! (quick!), dhoruba (storm), ka-kauka (to get dry), ku-kwama (to get stuck), and masika (flood). While I am nowhere close to fluency, learning these words from the guys has seemed more than fitting these last few weeks. Despite the very real possibility of a flooded camp, spirits have remained high and optimism persists throughout camp, bringing us all closer than ever in our efforts to stay safe and dry. 

From Paul's Tree, the green horizons have been irresistibly eye-catching, a more than appropriate reason to pause observations for a bit to gaze and gawk...

     On a side-note, have you ever wondered what rain sounds like underneath a tarp? Sprinkles sounds like heavy rainfall, so just imagine what a downpour sounds like! The raindrops are amplified, so belting my favorite tunes at the top of my lungs has never been so enjoyable. From everyone in Talek camp, thanks for reading and continuing to get glimpses into our lives here in the Mara. 

A Momentous Anniversary

 Last Friday, November 7^th, 2015 was a special day. So special, in fact, that I’m just assuming the New York Times is still working on the story which is why we haven’t seen it on world news.

Last Friday, November 7^th, 2015 the world’s oldest recorded wild spotted hyena turned 23.

"Growing old isn't for sissies"...and Navajo is anything but that.

First seen in 1992, Navajo is known, in some capacity or another, by every single graduate student, undergraduate, or research assistant that has worked in Talek (and many who have worked in Serena as well). She is a legend in our project; the one and only common hyena that we can all connect over. She has been featured in numerous past blogs, like when she had her last litter of cubs or when she was part of an adult play-bout. She has featured in posts about what hyenas can survive, and seems to have a mini series to commemorate her birthday. 

Whenever we see Navajo, two questions arise:

1.    How does she do it!? This tenacious female is almost twice as old as the best average we have for how old hyenas live in the wild, and the lowest ranking female in the Talek clan – what strategies does she utilize to survive, especially considering how low-ranking she is? 
2.   What kind of thoughts does she have (or not have) about how much has changed since she was born? Because gee whiz has a lot changed!

Though without firm answers for either one, we have several thoughts to mull over.

To the first, we see a trend of lower-ranking hyenas growing too much larger body sizes than other, higher-ranking females. You might wonder - how is that the case, especially considering that a hyena’s rank contributes greatly to their access to food, protection, and energy expenditure?

Ted Williams asserting dominance, standing over Navajo

It makes sense though, when you think it through. In the linear hierarchy of spotted hyena society, a lower-ranking hyena has to give up their food to a higher-ranking individual, should they arrive and demand it. If you’re the lowest-ranking female (read: Navajo), that’s a lot of hyenas who can take your food. So if that is the case, would you want to hunt around everyone else, or on your own? And if you weren’t getting a lot of food at communal carcasses, would you want to kill a measly Thomson’s gazelle, or go for a solid large antelope meal? If you said hunting large antelope alone, you’re on the same mental wavelength as we are. But to take down a large antelope – that’s no small feat. So it begins to make more sense that lower-ranking females have greater body mass; more muscle to chase, hunt, and bring down a large antelope on their own. 

Those are the teeth of someone who has been eating for a looong time.

Also to the first – we don’t think it’s a coincidence that you almost always see Navajo entirely on her own. When group living can confer benefits of protection, and sociality among others, what does the solitary life afford? We believe that in this case, remaining on her own reduces Navajo’s risk of bearing the brunt of aggressions, as well as saves her energy.

Navajo plodding along in 2015

So perhaps Navajo has acquired superior and solitary hunting skills and developed advantageous spatial use patterns. In the time that it has taken her to establish these strategies, what else has changed?

The answer is, quite simply, a considerable amount.

For one, the composition of the clan, and her rank in it has evolved greatly. Navajo was born to the 5^th highest-ranking female at the time, Cochise, into a clan of 60 hyenas, putting her in the upper portion of the clan at the time. Over the years (23, may I remind you) Navajo gradually slipped in rank, a result of higher-ranking females having daughters who have daughters etc, and at least one rank takeover, until she came to where she is today – the lowest ranking female (34^th) in a clan of 130 (until just recently, more stories to come!).

The clan has undergone at least two major fissions, where one clan splits into at least two distinct clans, if not more. In the first (2000), her littermate, Geronimo, and her split and ended up in different clans. Where and with whom Navajo is ending up after this 2015 fission still remains slightly unclear.

Hyenas and social dynamics are not the only changing factor – the physical space has undergone great change as well. The territory of the Talek clan has expanded, shifted to the west, and now even encompasses a portion of the community lands that include and extend beyond the local Talek town.

Navajo’s life spurs numerous questions: How is knowledge of the borders of each clan passed among the clan? Does Navajo recognize that she spend times in areas she wouldn’t have as a young hyena? Does every member of the clan even know this old lady? How fast does new learning take place? Just how wide are her occlusal surfaces?

In the end, she’s a pretty amazing hyena. As low-ranking as she is, she’ll still exert the dominance she does…

The vultures had the carcass...

...but not anymore!

…as she continues her now-legendary life. Happy Birthday Navajo! 

Posted by, and all photos from, Hadley Couraud

"634 wildebeest.... and 1 zebra."

Part of our job as researchers is to paint a complete picture of the world our hyenas live in. Understanding how their environment affects their day-to-day lives is a huge part of this project, so we strive to give our usual behavioral and physiological data collection a little context. To this end we record daily temperatures and rainfall as well as every RA’s favorite biweekly chore: prey censuses!  

It's very kind of these topi to walk in a nice slow line for us. 

Twice a month between the hours of 7:00am and 9:00am, we put our counting hats on and drive a series of pre-set tracks (known as “transects” in researcher lingo) to record the number of prey animals along these tracks. Using a laser rangefinder, we count every large mammal (with ostriches as an added bonus) within 100m of the road.

Baby zebras: notorious for hiding under Mom. Darn all those stripes!

Some days, this is as easy as counting a grand total of one warthog trotting along in the tall grass. Other days, such as when the great wildebeest migration rolls into town, counting every animal gets a whole lot harder. During a recent census, we counted 2,273 wildebeest along one brief stretch of road.

A sight that's sure to make any RA go "uh-oh." You know, wildebeest, this makes the whole "driver counts the right side of the road, passenger counts the left side" system a lot harder. 

As frustrating as it can be to count 80 zebra in one spot who all refuse to stand still, these data can be used to shed a little light on the world of the hyena. For example, a past paper used prey censuses to understand how hyenas change their preferred hunting targets based on relative abundance (Holekamp 1997). So as long as our data collection is useful to the project, we’re happy to count as many antelope as are thrown at us! (But please don’t throw antelopes at us.)

Work Cited:

Holekamp, K. E., Smale, L., Berg, R. and Cooper, S. M. (1997), Hunting rates and hunting success in the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta). Journal of Zoology, 242: 1–15. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.1997.tb02925.x

The Pets We Can't Pet

In his memoir, Whatever You Do, Don’t Run, Botswana safari guide Peter Allison tells the story of Badge, a honey badger that adopted Allison’s camp as its home and became the unofficial camp “pet.” Despite their arguably cute, snub-nosed faces and a name that implies a sweet demeanor, honey badgers are anything but. Armed with long, sharp claws they can cause serious injury and are scared of nothing. They earn their namesake by plunging head first into beehives to feed on fresh honey, ignoring the swarming, stinging bees. They also fight cobras – and win.  

So imagine Allison’s shock when one night, sitting at the dining table with the camp’s guests, when Badge decided to introduce himself by jumping up in the middle of the table, helping himself to leftovers. After that night, Badge was a regular in camp and while the staff maintained a healthy and necessary fear of him, they grew quite fond of his presence.

I couldn’t help but relate to this story when I read it; we too have our own version of camp “pets” that, like Badge, bring comic relief to our daily routines.

In Serena, our most frequent visitors here are dwarf mongooses. They usually show up all at once, announcing their arrival with chirps and squeaks, barreling down the path in a blur of orange fur. Scurrying and chattering, they search the underbrush for insects; sometimes the braver ones will risk a few steps up onto our tarp before realizing we’re there and make a hasty retreat. They have a den by our choo as well, so they sometimes keep us company while we’re taking care of business (which will never cease to amuse me).

We also have resident warthogs who, despite their potential to be quite dangerous, are surprisingly docile and barely give us notice, completely absorbed in their grazing when we walk past. Tuftless, a warthog that has lost the fluffy end of his tail, visits camp quite often and is quickly becoming one of my favorites.

The most recent addition to our animal friends is Bartok, a leaf-nosed bat, who was discovered hanging upside-down above our lab tent one day.

Birds also like to hang around, mostly a group of noisy arrow-marked babblers, who hop boisterously across our floor tarp. They also seem to enjoy serenading us with their  raspy “kwhaa kwhaa” chorus; let’s just say they could use some singing lessons. My favorite of the group is Rumpy – a babbler missing his entire tail but still seems to fly just fine. 

At night, we often have slightly larger, more “interesting” visitors. Elephants like to graze in the bordering woods and will sometimes wander into camp. Now I love elephants and everything about them. But when a 1-ton animal is trumpeting and breaking branches close enough to your tent that you can hear them swallow with only a sheet of canvas as protection at 2AM, you wake up pretty fast. In the morning, we emerge from our tents to find tree branches scattered all over camp, evidence of the pachyderms’ overnight feast.

            Hippos also love to graze here at night, making their presence known with what sounds just like helicopter rotors: defecating while flinging their tails so that poop flies in various directions. The good news is that they favor the opposite side of camp from my tent (sorry Erin!).

            We all miss the companionship of the furry friends we left behind at home, so seeing familiar faces in camp throughout the day brings an element of comfort and homeyness to life here. While I never expected to share my front “lawn” with a warthog, I’m so glad I do and have grown increasingly fond of our numerous FisiCamp mascots. We may not have a “pet” honey badger, but I think we’re all quite ok with that!

Current RA pets!
Top row, left to right: Luke, Nola, Rocky, Jax
Bottom row: Oreo ("the amazing furious chihuahua"), Roscoe, Binx, Sparkie

Referenced book: Allison, P. (2008). Whatever you do, don’t run: True tales of a Botswana safari guide. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press.

Photos: Personal photos from Emily Ronis, Ciara S.G. Main, Jared Grimmer, Spencer Freeman, and Erin Person (thanks guys!)

           

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Carnivores Ft. Black-Backed Jackals

          As a Research Assistant, one of my daily responsibilities while out on an observation session is to record carnivore data. This means that whenever we find a carnivore in the territories that we study, we document where and when we saw that specific species. This data allows us to see what other carnivores the spotted hyena is living around and to record any interactions between them. I’ve been here four months now and the carnivores I’ve seen thus far are servals, lions, cheetahs, leopards, banded mongooses, dwarf mongooses, white-tailed mongooses and side-striped jackals. The most common carnivore spotted in Talek however, is undeniably the black-backed jackal.

          The black-backed jackal is a sleek, small canine who displays a distinct dark back coat, pointed ears, and a bushy tail. I think they closely resembles fox species. What has been striking in the behavior of the black-baked jackal is the observable, strict monogamous bond between pairs and their intense territorial defense strategies. We often find ourselves in what we think are black-backed jackal territories and spot a female, knowing too well that the male is most likely nearby. We often document black-backed jackals in adult pairs, but have had numerous observations of pups as well. A female will have litters of 3-4 and interestingly, the assistance of helpers, or older offspring, has been found to have a direct influence on pup survival. Not only do helpers contribute their regurgitations to lactating mothers and their pups, but they spend the majority of their time guarding the den when the mother and father are away.

          If necessary, a helper will warn the cubs to seek the den’s refuge by barking or rumble-growling. If a hyena is the danger, adults will drive them away by nipping at their haunches. Having witnessed this in the field, the ridiculously quick nipping from the jackal is countered by a hyena’s rapid snap. Together, the interactions between the species form this fluid dance-like movement between the two with the occasional squeal and bark throughout. It's quite the sight! One of our hyenas, Toad, a subadult female, discovered a black-backed jackal den and for weeks aggravated the resident jackals. But to our enjoyment, this allowed us to observe jackal pups and their parents respond to a hyena’s presence. Having to record where the individuals are, we stopped and watched the pups explore, play, and socialize outside the den on numerous occasions before they moved.

          The black-backed jackal is a regular at a carcass session with hyenas. When together at a carcass, the hyenas are more often than not quite tolerable of a jackal's presence, within reason of course. It’s been interesting to watch certain hyenas respond more aggressively to a jackal during a feeding than others, who seem to not mind at all. The civil hyena-jackal relationship is often tested when a jackal will dart in with remarkable boldness to steal a scrap, often resulting in a lunge or a snap from the hyenas feeding. That said, this never stops the black-backed jackals from persisting in their efforts for a tid-bit or two of a fresh wildebeest, zebra, or cow. When not mooching off of a hyena kill, the black-backed jackal is certainly an efficient predator, and of young Thompson’s gazelle fawns in particular.

          As parents, a mother and father display exceptional rearing strategies. Denning in holes that have been dug by other species like the warthog, the mother will spend nearly all of her time in the pups’ early weeks of life keeping them warm. She is then provisioned by a helper or the father with food to sustain her and the young. As the pups age, the family may move dens multiple times. By around the middle of the third month, the pups will begin sleeping outside of the den and following their parents on foraging missions. With continued growth they start to independently hunt and explore further from the den and by eight months they will have left their natal territory. 

            Personally, I am always thrilled at a sighting of a black-backed jackal. Their swift nature, unyielding gusto in fighting off a hyena from a den, attempts to snatch a bite or two off a carcass, and all of their other behavioral quirks make them a fascinating organism to observe here in the Mara.

Thanks for checking out our blog - we hope you come back again soon!

Personal Photos of Jared P. Grimmer 

     Source: Estes, Richard Despard: Behavior Guide to African Mammals. 1991