into the heart

the zebras return

i've been spending more time up at the park the past couple months.  lubumbashi is boiling hot but the rains have started in lusinga, and work makes an excellent excuse to retreat to the cooler, breezer climes of the plateau.   

however, with the rains the park will become more and more inaccessible so we are trying to cram as much as we can into the last few dry-ish months.  we've had a number of activities going with the park rangers, including training on gps and developing a new data collection system, pre-selecting new rangers and a workshop to map out the content of the general management plan.  these are some of our big outputs for the year and so it's been good for me to be able to come up and be part of that. 

one of the things that coincides with the onset of rainy season is that the zebra arrive near the park hq.  they come to eat the young shoots of grass, especially vibrant this year after the whole plain was burned.  the grass has come in quickly and the zebras are now just within walking distance.  they don't let you get too close, though.  the male snorts and shakes his head and then trots off to lead his ladies away.  speaking of the ladies, it appears several are pregnant and we hope with the new foals our little population will hit 40 this year.  we shall see.

serengeti

it's been approximately 1 million years since i posted here.  the internet's been terrible again in lubumbashi and since my vacation i've been so busy during the day that in the evenings i want to just watch dvds and zone out.  and since i pretty much commute from my bed to my desk to my bed again it's hard to think of anything interesting to say.  (the whole 5 meters between my bed and desk does make for a very very short commute.... too short one might say. sometimes i forget to put on shoes.) 

but i did head back to serengeti for an fzs workshop.  these are some photos.  it's funny... i spent 80% of my time there in meetings and 95% of my time in congo in front of my desk or asleep, but you'd think from this post i'm out frolicking in the wilderness!  

i guess it gets back to what i mentioned in my post in december... most people work to live and in my case it's not really any different... the only thing is the my work puts me a bit closer to the places i want to do my living.... and my living can be quite extraordinary.

case in point: even though we just had a couple hours to set out in the morning before meetings, it was pretty amazing to catch a glimpse of these three male lions loving on each other.  we found them making their way across a big open plain.  three bachelors.  they couldn't help but stop and cuddle every few minutes!  they'd walk apart and then get in really close, rubbing cheeks and sides against each other... and then just drop down and start wrestling.  so so cute.  

you could almost forget, just for a second, how extremely scary they are.  

i was lucky to be in seronera, the middle of the park, to catch part of the great migration.  this is when wildebeest (aka. gnu) and zebra move across serengeti in tanzania, north to the mara in kenya and then back by the thousands.  they lead the charge, but the predators that hunt them follow eagerly.  seemingly endless herds of zebra and wildebeest with their young is already pretty dramatic... and then to consider that every night they are getting picked off by lions, leopards, hyenas, wild dog, cheetahs... it's the definition of drama.  (and yes, the sky really was that color... a storm was on its way.)

but the eles... they are my favorite.  growing up in thailand we got so used to seeing elephants everywhere.  petting them, feeding them bananas, seeing them in rural towns and villages... i didn't feel any more scared walking up to an adult elephant than i did a dog!  i can still remember the feel of their wrinkley, leathery skin and thick hairs, and that they like to be scratched, the way their trunks curl around your hands or search your pockets for treats.  the way their eyes are a warm reddish brown color and seem a little too small for their bodies, but their long long lashes make up for it.  i didn't realize until recently quite how amazing and unique that experience was.  i have been so close to elephants and yet i am still drawn to and in awe of them every time.  

elephants

i took this photo in serengeti in december.  the two bulls were far away.  my lens was good but not that good.  the photos were blurry and the colors washed out in the late morning sun.  but i played around with this one because i loved the memory.  i loved watching these two, in the distance, playing and nuzzling.  this photo is still not brilliant and definitely not novel.  but i love it anyway.  it says to me that they belong there.  this is their home and they are their people.  i have always loved elephants, but the more i see them in the wild and the greater the threats against them grow, the more my adoration for their complexity and beauty grows as well.

central park and amnh

swinging down...

 

... and up again.

 

a tiny new yorker.

 

the dinosaurs' view.

 

biodiversity.

 

out of the deep.

 

proof of life on earth.

giraffe center

i'm currently riding out the drc election period, which is unpredicatable and full of tension, in nairobi, kenya.  i had a sunday off and decided to visit the giraffe centre.  it's the offshoot of a rothschild giraffe conservation program, and is home to a number of the tall ones.  they roam a huge green space and happily scoop pellets off the hands of tourists with their long, scratchy, blue tongues. 

i thought i'd stop in to see to these resident "savanna okapis," and, once there, how could i turn down a famous "giraffe kiss?!"  though seriously huge, the thing that really strikes you about these guys (or girls actually) is how gentle they are... that kiss is a bit sloppy but oh so sweet.

zebras!

upemba national park has faced a lot of challenges over the years.  neglect and lack of funding, occupation of military and rebels, and intense hunting by all sorts of groups to the point that nearly all the large mammals were wiped out.  the antelopes and small mammals were hunted for food, the zebras shot down en masse by the military and, rumor has it, even some UN peacekeepers for their skins, and of course, with scarce prey, the predators like lions and leopards largely disappeared.

but a few individual zebra, as well as a small number of antelopes of different types, monkeys, baboons and small animals made it through the worst periods.  the zebras are the most visible example of what's left, and a good indicator of some types of threats (though they aren't as impacted by bushmeat snares as other species). 

once down to less than 10, the zebras are bouncing back.  in the rainy season the herd, broken into family groups, spends its days quite near the park headquarters on a high, green grassy plateau. in the photo above you can see how close they are to the staion!  this past week when i visited the park we took a walk to see them, spotting them first in the distance from the station.  they let us get surprisingly close and i was able to get a few good shots, albeit under an overcast sky and with a telephoto lens.

to be honest, i've never been a big hooved animal person... aside from the obligatory pony phase every girl goes through, i was much more into the predators, elephants and odd creatures like bats and ant eaters.  but i have to admit, there is something intensely compelling about zebra.  when you really look at them their patterns dazzle and appeal to some very basic aesthetic.

their stripes play with your eyes as they outline a body of pure muscular heft.   you can really see how they blend the herd together and make it difficult to spot individual animals... a great defense from predators that aim to pick out a single target to isolate from the herd.  when you stare at them a while sometimes it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.  in the photo above you can barely even see the foal against it's mother and aunts!

and of course a little stripey foal bouncing around by it's mom is pretty darn cute.  i mean look at that funny little tail and adorable whiskered chin!

back in beni. again.

it feels like i'm always coming or going from beni.  this time i'm here for just a couple weeks.  the last time i came back i snapped these on my first day.  this was my welcome home, and quite a nice one.

zeta napping on the bed.

one egg a day (after i ate 4!) from the lovely red egg-layer hen.

mama hen with her [now] nine chicks out for a daily stroll with zeta locked in the bedroom.

whoops!  hey, little buddy, steer clear of mom's feet, and don't fall off the edge!

camels

in continuing the totally random nature of this blog, caused in part by my laziness and in part by the laziness of the congolese internet providers everywhere i go, i give you this: a post of camel portraits.  

my family went to morocco for our summer vacation (when you are scattered across the globe, north africa seems like as good a place as any to meet!) and there i met and fell smitten for several camels.

they are a grumpy lot, camels.  complaining and awkward looking.  but i also found them totally endearingly irresistible.  not sure if it was the big eyes or long lashes, fuzzy muzzles or funny noises, knock knees or too-small ears, or something about their soft padded feet...

but i have a new favorite domesticaed animal (ok, tied with cats and perhaps second to dogs).  and yes, i'm that much of an animal dork that i specify.   in fact, i decided that, should my conservation career fail, camel portrait photographer may be my calling.

they are so individual and, in their grumpy groaniness, totally charming.  so well adapted to both the environment and the society in which they live.  plus, apparently they can drink out of water bottles.  who knew?

ok ok, enough about camels.  i will have news soon of the sort to be posted here.  and i hope to also post more photos from the past few months.  but for now... this is what you get.  

the wrong kind of chickens

apparently i have the wrong kind of chickens.  well, they are the right kind if i wanted to eat them but the wrong kind if i want to eat their eggs.  also, the fact that my fuzzy little chicks grew into only 1 hen and 3 roosters doesn't help (see the photo above).

when i told the gardener, innocent, that i was hoping to get a couple more hens and build a nesting area for them he informed me that my hen wouldn't lay eggs.  well, ok, he conceded, she's will lay some.  but what i really need is something called a "pondais."  i had no idea what that was and took a few minutes in fractured french to confirm it wasn't a duck or a guinea hen but a different kind of chicken.

apparently the magical "pondais" produces at least one egg a day for up to a year, where as my fat little black hen could only be expected to produce a few eggs now and then.  useful mostly to make more meat chickens.

so i agreed to let him get me an $8 "pondais."  (only later did i realize that the pondre is french for "to lay," as in an egg.)  he later returned with a "layer" in a lovely light vodka sauce color.  she looks a bit like a rooster to me, with a small bright red crown, but when she's walking around you can tell she's a hen.  so now the 3 roosters and 2 hens are hanging out together and we're waiting to see if she starts doing her thing.  innocent has already fashioned her a nest.

however, in the meantime, little black hen, not to be outdone, started laying!  so far she's laid 12, yes TWELVE, eggs.  and where did she lay them?  having no nest box due to my laziness she has opted to lay them in poor innocents bedroom... right next to his bed.

luckily, innocent is particularly fond of (and clearly knowledgable about) chickens.  turns out his family has a chicken farm near goma.  so he finds the whole thing kind of hilarious but doesn't seem to mind at all.  for now she just keeps laying these eggs, which we assume are fertilized.  he tells me that when she's laid all of them (who knows how many that will be?!) she'll sit on them for 21 days. does he mind that a chicken will be his roommate for a month?  apparently not.

given the general lack of senstitivity to animals here - even those that are expected to provide meat and other products for people - i appreciate his good humor and sweetness about all of this.  he even seems a little excited to see how many eggs she ends up with.

myself, i'm a little nervous that zeta the cat will find the chicks all too tempting.  she's already taken to harassing the chickens and causing their pea brains to go into major panic, despite she's 1/3 their size.  innocent assures he he'll keep them locked away until they are big enough to get away from her.

but the problem of 3 roosters remains.  not only are they noisy, but they are starting to fight!  so i guess eventually i'll have to accept one or two of them going the way of the cookpot, though the idea makes me a little sad.  but though i hate to admit it, having now actually owned and observed chickens, i can say with some mixed feelings that i don't feel as bad about one or two of them ending up eaten.  they live quite good chicken lives in our yard... chasing bugs, crowing in the morning, picking at the small plants, and getting very fat on corn and oats.  as a vegetarian it's a bit surprising to me, and was a little upsetting at first, that i don't feel a huge attachment to them.  i like them but... they aren't pets.  and the term "bird brained" rings truer than i would have imagined.

still, though, i don't want to be there on that fateful day.

rainboweb

in goma this week.  hoping to use the faster web connection (pun!) to make a few posts with photos from the last couple of months.  in the mean time, here's a photo of the resident spider's web in my beni bathroom, sparkling in the sun one afternoon.