So what do I do out here?

So what is it exactly that do I do out here? Let me start off by giving you a quick rundown of a typical day. I get up at 5:30am, grab a quick cup of tea, and usually leave camp by 5:45. The sun doesn't start to rise until around 6am, so it's still completely dark at that time. I stay out watching hyenas until around 9:30 am, sometimes later if something really exciting is happening, and then head back to camp for breakfast. During the middle of the day I go through the more tedious aspects of the job, namely transcribing my field notes and attending to any camp maintenance and management work.

Brief segue here: I don't think I realized when I first took this job exactly how much would be on my shoulders out here. I actually run a field camp -- I handle buying supplies, paying salaries, refilling the water supply, camp-community relations, field vehicle maintenance, solar power maintenance, accounting, you name it. It's more responsibility than I anticipated and it can be kind of scary. If I screw up out here, well, then the whole camp is screwed, and it's not easy to dig yourself out of a hole when the nearest town of respectable size is 4 hours away. Still, it's great experience, and it will be so valuable if I get to the point of setting up my own field site.

Ok, back to the job. In the middle of the day there's usually time for a nap, a workout, whatever personal time you want to squeeze in between errands, etc. Then at around 5pm it's back out into the field for the evening session. I'm out until around 7:30 or 8, well after dark, and then it's time to head back to camp for dinner. I'm usually in bed no later than 10pm, so strangely enough I'm getting more sleep out here with a 5:30am wake up call than I have back home for the past 4 years or so.

Now, a crash course on hyena basics. Hyenas are social carnivores. They live in big groups called clans. The camp on the other side of the Mara actually has a clan with over 90 hyenas, but each of my clans has roughly 40-50 hyenas. Hyenas have their cubs in dens, which are usually just old, abandoned aardvark or warthog holes that the hyenas re-use. Each female gives birth on her own in a natal den, then after a few days brings the cubs to a communal den, where the cubs can learn the clan social structure and ranks. This doesn't mean that all the hyenas in a clan congregate around the den. The only time you're sure to see a hyena at the communal den is if it's a female with young, den-dependent cubs. Otherwise, it's anyone's guess where in the clan territory a hyena will be. We can go for over 6 months without seeing a hyena, list it as missing/dead, and then oops, randomly just find it again while driving around.

I study 3 clans (Serena North, Serena South, and Happy Zebra, which gives me about 120-150 hyenas total), go out on observations ("obs" for short), watch hyenas, and study behavior (particularly dominance/submission interactions). So far this doesn't seem so tough, right? But picture this: you have 6 hyenas hanging out around the den. All of a sudden, 2 of the hyenas decide to gang up on a 3rd, who turns and beats up on a 4th because she's not happy at being aggressed on, at the same time as 2 more hyenas arrive from nowhere and join in the party. Wait, which hyena is which? Who were the ones that just arrived? Oh crap, what were the other 2 doing while the 6 were all in a tangle? Sessions can get really crazy, really fast.

There are a ton of behaviors to learn, plus different levels of aggression, contexts for aggression, reactions to aggression, contexts for sound, contexts for pasting (another type of behavior), and you have to train yourself to see it as soon as it happens, because it's happening and over and done in just a few seconds.

This isn't even the hard part though. The toughest part is, none of these interactions mean diddly-squat unless I know who my hyenas are. Each hyena has a name and is identifiable by a unique spot pattern. They're as distinct as human fingerprints. Ok, fine, great. This still does not make them easy to identify. At. All. Here, have a look:

Bartlet


Judas


Bing


Grimace


That is a crap-ton of spots, and that's just 4 hyenas! These are all also really good, clear pictures. These are the kind of pictures we put in our ID books. You can see most or all of the spots clearly, including leg spots, and you might even be able to see ear damage. Hyenas will not always pose for you this conveniently. What you're more likely to get is this:



BTW, this last hyena is the same as one of the hyenas in the first 4 pictures :) Name this hyena guys!

This is also only one side of a hyena. They each have a whole other side and no, unfortunately they are not symmetrically patterned.

So, I have to memorize good spot features on both sides of each of my hyenas, and then I have to prepare for the likelihood that I won't even be able to see that particular feature because my hyena will be lying down, or obscured by grass, or standing in a ditch, or coated in mud, or a million other things that make it not look how it should. On top of that, I need to know which hyenas belong to what clan (particularly important now because some of my hyenas have been showing up in the territory of clans they don't belong to), which hyenas are related, who holds what rank, what genders and age classes the hyenas are... yikes, the mind boggles. And before any of these even comes in to play, I first have to FIND the hyenas, and like I said they can be anywhere in the clan territory at any given time.

Despite all this, I freely admit that this is the best job I've ever had (yes, because I've had just sooo much experience in my 24 years of life, obviously :P ). The hyenas are just so interesting, and once you get to know them them and get a feel for their personalities, it's so easy to get attached. I was onyla few weeks into the job when I already had my favorites, and I know I'll be heartbroken when I have to leave them and go home. And the babies! The cubs are just the cutest thing in the world! Not to mention I'm outdoors all the time and not boxed up in an office all day! So yeah, the work can be tough and the pay is shit, but man is it worth it!

Anyway, I hope you have fun with the little hyena game. If anyone enjoys it, let me know because I'd love to put more up!

Although I’m here in the Mara to study hyenas, for some reason I’ve also been lucky enough to have some amazing lion sightings! Here are a few of the best, pictures included!

About a month ago, we (and btw whenever I say we, I mean me and the other researcher at camp) were out in the territory of our furthest clan. It had been raining a little that morning, so there was no one else out other than one of the ranger cars. All of a sudden we came across 8 male lions trotting along the road. There was a group of 4 up ahead, and another group of 4 trailing behind them. All of a sudden the 4 in the back picked up speed and started chasing the 4 in front! They were roaring like crazy too! I’ve heard lots of lions roaring, usually around the camp at night, and they were never this loud!

For the sake of keeping the story straight, the 4 in the back are the sons of this pretty notorious male lion named Notch, so I’ll call them Notch’s boys for the rest of the story. The 4 being chased are from further down South near the Tanzania border, so I’ll call them the South 4.


(This is Notch, though he’s acting a little doofy right now!)

So the South 4 in front run, and Notch’s boys give chase, and both the ranger car and we are speeding down the road to follow. Then, the South 4 decide, hey, we’re not going to be muscled out! So they regroup, turn around, and they chase Notch’s boys back!!! They chase them all the way past this really picturesque watering hole, and then the South 4 spread out around this watering hole and start hollering and roaring all around it to stake their claim! It was crazy to see, one even climbed this little cliff behind the watering hole and was standing on it, think Simba standing on Pride Rock style! And then Notch’s boys decide they’re tired of running, so then turn around and chase the South 4 again! So off they go in the opposite direction! And picture us and the ranger car, first speeding one way, turning around, speeding back the way we came, then oops, they turn around and off we go in the opposite direction again. It was amazing to see though. They went back and forth several more times before we lost them on a really rocky plain.

















Later on we talked to the Disney crew (Disney Nature is working on a full length film about the big cats of the Mara, and the film crew has been out here following the lions and cheetahs for almost 2 years I think). Amanda and Owen, who are in charge of the lions, have been filming lions pretty much non-stop for over three years and they said they’d never seen a territorial battle that big. The biggest one they’d seen was 2 vs. 2 in one of the other reserves (Tsavo, I think?). Some of you may appreciate this, Amanda and Owen have actually done some filming with David Attenborough (ok, maybe a little bit of hero worship going on here)! They've been doing nature/documentary filming for like20 years! We felt really bad that we were out of cell coverage at the time and we couldn’t let them know about this, but at least the light was not really good for filming (cloudy and nearing dusk) so they didn’t miss any footage. I would have liked for them to see it though.

A few days after that, I was out doing obs on my own. It was drizzling and pretty overcast and I wasn’t having much luck finding my hyenas. I was driving down one of the roads, and I see a big golden mass walking towards me along the road. I stop the car and kill the engine, since it’s headed toward me anyway and I don’t need to follow, and as the mass comes closer I see that it’s actually 3 lionesses and 9 lion cubs walking in a group. They walk right up to the car and just sort of split up to walk past me on both sides. They were SO CLOSE. We have to drive around with the windows open (SOP, better visibility and all), and they were so close that I could have literally just stuck my hand out the window and grabbed their tails. THAT CLOSE. And this is one of the smaller cars I’m in, so the lionesses’ heads were just about level with my very open windows. They went past me and I was about to stick my head out the window so I could look back and count them (since we need accurate carnivore counts) and there was one straggler lioness running to catch up with the rest of the group that raced right past my nose!!! My face was very much: O.O

I may have slightly deficient self-preservation instincts though, because I was way more “OMG THAT WAS SOOOO COOL” than I was “Wow, there’s nothing but an open car window between me and these lions.” Heh.



Fast forward a little. Two weeks ago, we were out looking for hyenas in the morning and we see what we think are 4 lionesses walking down a hill towards us. Again, we record all carnivores we see in addition to studying hyenas, so we waited for them to get closer and as they pass right in front of the car, we see they’re actually sub-adult male lions, not adult lionesses. The Disney crew is following these subs as the main characters in the movie, so we immediately call the Disneys to let them know we’ve found their subs, and we’ll follow them to keep track until they can get over there (bush courtesy, everyone tries to share info on where you’ve seen each others animals). So we follow the subs all the way to a look-out point above the river, and just as Amanda drives up they go over the edge and down to the bank of the river.



So we’re thinking, hmm, WTF are they doing? They’re not going to cross are they?! It’s been raining A LOT so the Mara River is really high right now. And then suddenly, there are four lions struggling through the water, battling against the current! AND THERE ARE THREE HUGE CROCODILES CLOSING IN!!!

Amanda was freaking out, my jaw completely dropped, and everyone was holding their breath! One of the lions lagged behind, and one of the crocodiles was within a meter of him when he finally heaved himself on to the opposite bank! Then the lions sat soaking wet on the opposite bank and were snarling at the crocs that were still in the water. I was so worried that they might have actually got bitten but luckily they were fine. Once she caught her breath Amanda told us that they had only seen these lions cross the river a few times, and never when the water was so high, and also never with crocs around! And sadly Owen didn’t make it and they weren’t able to film it!!!





Ok, last (for now) crazy lion sighting! Right after seeing that crossing, we drove past a lioness that was digging up what looked like a warthog mound. Now, if we see something cool out in the Mara our boss fully supports us staying to watch, even if it isn’t hyena related. So we sat and watched the lioness dig for around 45 minutes (a tourist car wandered by in that time, stayed for maybe 15 minutes, and then left when nothing was happening… stupid, impatient tourists, their loss!). Then suddenly she dove completely into the mound! We could only see maybe a foot and a half of her tail is visible whipping around in the air! Then she heaves backwards with A BABY WARTHOG IN HER JAWS.











So she kills the pig and carries her prize away to the bushes to eat it in peace, and here’s the really sad part. A little set of ears pops out of the den, and then this poor little pig sticks its head out of the hole and looks around, looking really sad and lost. Then it jumps and runs into the grass, probably wondering where its brother or sister went. We felt so badly for the poor little guy ;_;

So yeah, crazy amazing lion sightings, though I would trade one or two of them for crazy amazing hyena sightings! I <3 my hyenas so much! Next post will be all about them, I promise!

Enjoy the pictures everyone!

Adventures with Elephants

It's been raining like crazy recently so camp hasn't had much power. I actually wrote this down on paper back when this happened and am only now getting to type it, so just pretend like you're reading this on March 24.

March 24, 2010

So yesterday was my first solo expedition into the bush. My fellow researchers (Andy and Jen, a grad student and his wife who's come to help him with his research) have been asked to help judge a competition for "Most Responsible Safari Guide." This entails spending the night at 8 different lodges around the Mara, all expenses paid, and going on several game drives after which they score their drivers. They get the works, nice rooms/tents, hot showers, meals and drinks, etc., which ok, makes me a little jealous. Well, not the food though, because our cook at camp tops any of the lodge chefs. But seriously, a toilet that flushes? Serious luxury out here!

Anyway, these stays are spaced out over the course of 6 weeks, but basically when they do one of these I have camp all to myself for about 24 hours.

At around 5 pm yesterday I headed out to do obs on my own for the first time. The session itself was fine. I think I actually spot hyenas better on my own, since I end up over-compensating for not having 2 other pairs of eyes in the car. It was great practice too, since eventually I'll be doing obs on my own pretty much all the time, once Andy dives into his dissertation research.

It started to rain halfway through the session, but not too badly so I decided to carry on. (It's been unseasonably rainy this past month, to the point that we get stuck out on tracks or even get rained in and can't leave camp.) Anyway, despite the rain I was getting along just fine, feeling really sorry for my poor hyenas because the ones I saw were soaked and miserable-looking. It was dark by 7:00 pm, but I didn't end obs until around 7:30 pm once it started raining hard enough that the hyenas all took cover and I wasn't seeing anything useful anymore.

So, there I am on my way back to camp, tootling along carefully down a muddy, slippery road in the pitch black (and when I say road, what I actually mean is an unpaved, glorified track with delusions of grandeur), no one else out because you need special permission to be out on the roads after dark in the Mara, and all off a sudden there's this huge movement just off the road maybe 15 meters in front of the car. In a split second I process that, OH SHIT THERE'S A BIG BULL ELEPHANT. Who looks NOT HAPPY. YAY. Then I slam the car in reverse and floor it back down the track, frantically praying that I remember how the track bends and am not about to slam the cruiser into a ditch.

I back up until I can just barely see the elephant at the edge of the glow of my high beams, and then park my ass to wait and see if the big brute will wander away from the road of his own volition. And btw, I'm watching him the whole time through my binos and I can see him tossing his head and flapping his ears and generally looking like a really aggravated elephant.

30 minutes later, I'm still sitting in the rain as the road slowly turns to muddy slush, at which point I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I wait longer and risk the road getting soaked to the point that I can't drive and am stuck overnight, or do I go for it and hope that the elephant doesn't decide to go for me in return? And if I go, do I keep it slow and unthreatening so I don't skid off the road, but risk getting rammed by a charging elephant, or do I gun it and risk crashing the car in a ditch? Hmm. Tough one.

Oh, and I should mention that I am completely on my own for this one -- I'd been trying at that point to call Andy for 20 minutes, on the off chance that he had more knowledge of elephant handling than I do. But hey, it's raining after all, and I find that although I have great signal where I am, no one else has signal to receive my call.

So I'm wet, I'm cold, I'm hungry, and I decide to just gun it. It would ultimately be easier to tow the car out of a ditch, than it would to unsquash it after 4 tons of angry bull elephant tramples it right? Also, please no squishing of the car while I'm in it, mmmk?

I back up the car a little first to give myself enough space that I can get up into 3rd gear well before I reach the elephant. On your mark, get set, GO! I zoom through the road and my heart's beating triple time as I catch a brief glimpse of startled elephant at the corner of my eye, all while I'm trying to keep the car on the road and stop it from fishtailing. Then woah, YES, I'm through and the elephant is just a fading speck in my rearview mirror.

I get back to camp and the staff are all, oh, late night huh? Oh boy. You have no idea.

Anyway, the car is fine, I'm fine, the elephant is fine, and the nice thing is that it rained so much that I got to sleep in this morning.

We've been getting a little more sun recently, so hopefully I'll be quicker with the updates. I'll check in again soon!