Wild Kenya

My third-first (the third time I've had a first week) week in Kenya has been pretty wonderful.

The first excellent thing was visiting the chimps. I rolled in on a Saturday morning during visitors hours, because I had errands to run in the morning. (The first few days of my trips to Kenya are inevitably filled with many errands that need my attention NOW, not later, but NOW.)  The chimps were hiding from me, and I was pretty miffed about that, honestly.  I walked back to the old chimp house to see if I could find any other chimps there, and while there were none from the big group, the smaller group of chimps was there.  Romeo recognized me immediately, and started to pant grunt, pat his chest, and play with me.  That removed any ill feelings I might have had immediately: there is no better feeling than knowing some old friends still remember you.  Romeo and I chased one another up and down the fence for a while, and after that I headed back to research to finish up the various protocol, email, credit-card, and requirement loose-ends I had left in the US.

Superb starling

I spent the next few days working on-and-off at chimps figuring out some of the kinks and getting fluent with my data collection system.  Oh yes, my data collection system.  I’m all digital now, did you know?  Thanks to Natalie, my wonderful sister, I’ve got an app hard-coded for two Lenovo tablets that I use to collect data with.  This sure beats the data entry system of last year: paper and pen, then hours on the computer in the evenings.  Considering that I’ll have a couple of hours of lab work to catch up with each night after I start collecting fecal samples, not having to do paper-to-computer data entry is so wonderful.  I still use a voice recorder for times when the action is too quick for me to get it all down in time, or I need to be watching carefully.  This is usually just at chimp meal times, so I only have about 30-40 minutes per day of voice recordings that I need to transcribe. 

Cheetah snuggling with Angie

The chimps are as entertaining as ever, although the young chimps have been proving hard to find lately. They moved to a wonderful, big, and brand new night house recently, and it has really changed their daily schedule.  Last year, they would spend at least four hours a day at their night house lazing around, napping, grooming, and giving me lots of data. Now they will spend some time at the new night house, some at the old night house, and a rather large amount of it… away. In the bush, somewhere, but that’s no good for my project!  They have just moved in though, so hopefully they settle into a new routine quickly and will come back to give me lots of data.

At the old chimp house, Angela, the baby, is as adorable as ever, though she has grown up quite a bit in the last year. She is very popular with the females, but it seems that most of the males are as yet a little reluctant to play with her. Perhaps because she is still quite small (sitting down she is less than a foot tall, and probably only about 18” in total length, and I would guess she only weighs about 15 pounds), and compared to the males’ 120-170 pounds, that’s quite small still.  Mwanzo is letting her adventure around quite a bit though, so Angela gets to roam free. Eva, a 10-ish year old female, is very, very fond of her, and often carries her around. Angela seems to trust Eva quite a bit: one day when they were playing on the shade structure, Angela wanted to climb in a tree that was a bit far away for her to jump to. Eva put one leg on the shad structure and one on the tree, and let Angela use her as a bridge to climb into the tree.  Eva also loves to play aeroplane with Angie, and I got this sweet picture of them together.

On Friday, Blair, Jenny, Youngin (three Princeton students, the first two of which I was with in Kenya last year) and I went to town to get supplies for my lab work and one of Blair’s experiments. There we met up with Eric, one of the cooks from the research center, who is currently on his “off” (short leave from work) and staying with his family. He had previously invited us to his family’s house which we were happy to visit, and found incredibly beautiful.  His family is a very Australian-style house on decently sized property where they keep some chickens, goats, a couple of cows, a sheep, and rabbits, and a small shamba (garden).  The animals graze around the property and across the road they have another property: one where they have a bigger shamba.  They grow lots of maize in the shamba, as well as beans (of all types), oranges, avocados, mangoes, papaya (unfortunately only a male tree lives there right now), kale (sukuma in swahili), and onions, carrots, garlic, beets, and any vegetable they would like. Eric told us that he and his neighbors are happy to share their produce with one another, so if one of them is growing something that the other doesn’t have, they can just forage in the other’s garden.

We also met Eric’s parents, two sisters, and hundred year old grandmother. One. Hundred. Years. 100. I kid you not. That lady had the strongest grip of any woman I’d ever met, and works in her garden daily.  Eric’s mother and sisters served us a delicious lunch of chicken, peas, and mukimo (a Kikuyu dish of potatoes, maize, greens, and sometimes beans and/or peas mashed together), and chapatti. They kept refilling our dishes and cups too, which had all of us groaning with fullness.

After lunch, Eric and his uncle John, as well as his two sister, Esperanza and Kate, and us all went on a walk down to the nearby Nanyuki river.  The river was quite shallow and very beautiful, with vegetation all around it and plenty of rocks for us to jump on and between.  After playing around at the river for a while, we walked over to a quarry and played in the water there too.  On the way we went by a school and a church, and plenty of livestock and cute skinny dogs guarding peoples’ houses. Unfortunately the rain caught us on the way back from the quarry and we got relatively soaked before we took shelter in a tea house.  In the teahouse, Youngin taught me how to play checkers and trounced me thoroughly, twice.  It doesn’t seem like a very riveting game, though.

A young elephant on Oryx plain. We found her in a herd of at least 15, with a couple of little babies to boot.

This afternoon I have plenty of grant writing to do and will probably go lion tracking around three.  These loose ends suck to tie up, but it must be done!

Gorbachev, the resident blind elephant, cleverly navigating a steep riverbank.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Things have been changing at chimps, and I’m not entirely certain if it’s something that I’m just noticing because I’ve been here for a few weeks, or because things are really shifting around over here.

Angela's eight teeth

For one, Angela is growing.  Obviously that was going to happen, but I’ve never had a chance to watch a chimp grow up before, and she’s so adorably human-like that I can’t help but compare her progress to that of a human baby.  At three months old now she has eight teeth (or did the last time I took a photo), all of which are just erupting from her gumline.  She is also focusing on things now, instead of just looking around or past them.  With this new-found proper eyesight, she has become fascinated by the colourful fruits and vegetables that Mwanzo eats and is often reaching for them, although she never eats any of the food that she manages to touch.  Ajabu has moved from jealousy or disinterest in the baby to intense desire of the baby, and can often be seen trying to pull Angela from her mother’s back.  She hasn’t yet succeeded as Mwanzo always holds Angela close during these attempts, but I am sure she will soon.

Angela, Mwanzo, and Sultana

Angela has also been trying to move around on her own a lot more, standing up when her mother is lying down and crawling away from her ventrum while she’s awake.  More of the chimps have been allowed to touch her, and while I’m not sure if Angela enjoys their attentions, the other chimps certainly appreciate being able to touch the precious baby.  Fortunately for Ajabu, this hasn’t seemed to detract from her popularity (well, except with Mwanzo), and she is still carried around by nearly anyone she wants.

Ajabu and Victoria playing

Ajabu has discovered a newfound power: the power of her mother and grandmother.  Since I’ve been at Sweetwaters I’ve seen Ajabu play with almost every member of the old chimps group, and sometimes when she’s playing with the big males things can get pretty rough.  Despite this I’ve never heard her vocalize other than the panting laughter that chimps make during play, and if things get too rough for her she usually just runs over to Mwanzo or Sultana for comfort.  The other day she was playing with George when George got a bit overzealous, and instead of just running away from him I heard Ajabu make a scream-threat at him.  Sultana was there in an instant and both she and Mwanzo proceeded to chase George for about ten seconds, while Ajabu followed.  I don’t think George or Ajabu truly understood what had happened, because as soon as Sultana and Mwanzo ended their chase Ajabu resumed playing with George.  George, in his annoyance, immediately slapped Ajabu which resulted in more threat-screams, and George was chased once again.

Ajabu not being a big girl and riding on Cheetah's back

In addition to discovering her maternal support, Ajabu has also been walking around more lately.  The other day she walked all the way from the night house to the platform, about half a kilometer, all by herself.  She started out walking following her mother and after she was rejected from her mother’s back a couple of times tried Edward.  She walked with one hand slung over Edward’s back for a few strides and then grabbed on and clambered up so she was riding on him, but after a few metres Edward pitched one of his hips down and slid Ajabu off.  She tried this again a couple of times, and each time ended with Edward rejecting her. I’ve never actually seen Edward carry Ajabu before, so I’m not sure if she just made a poor choice of mount or if he decided that she’s old enough and heavy enough to be walking on her own.  She walked the rest of the way quite happily though, no tantrums to be seen or heard, and happily chomped on peanuts after arriving at the platform.

 Shamefully, this is one of my only pictures of Jane or Joy.  Joy hates it whenever I get the camera out and point it at her, and Jane likes to tease me by throwing avocado seeds at me to send me running for the hills.

 On the other side of the river, I’ve been noticing some changes with Jane and Joy.  Jane is the youngest girl in the group, having been fostered onto Akela when she was two and a half, and has always been an independent youngster (or so I am told).  Her main playmate is Joy who is only a year older than Jane, and the two of them spend almost all their time together.  I have noticed recently that Joy seems to be putting some distance between them, whether intentionally or inadvertently I am not sure.  Joy’s mother is Tess, the fattest and laziest chimp in all of Sweetwaters, and I have noticed that Joy is starting to take after her more and more.  When the other chimps in the young group are napping post-lunch, Jane is often rolling around in the grass playing with herself or some toy she has found.  Joy used to join her for part of that playtime, but now she seems to be hanging back with the other chimps and napping instead.  And when Joy and Jane would usually be found climbing trees together and shaking the branches happily, I am now seeing just Jane in the upper reaches of the murera (yellow fever trees) while Joy sits below with her mother and friends.

 Joy still joins Jane in some of her playing, but it seems to me that the closeness that I saw between them earlier in the summer is dwindling.  Jane is still firmly rooted in childhood, and from what I know of her personality may stay a playful, mischievous chimp forever, but Joy seems to be moving towards a more adult activity budget: a little less play and a little more grooming.

As for myself, I no longer despise birding.  I’m actually having a lot of fun identifying and taking photos of all the cute birds I find in the walkway.  I’m not sure I’ll ever share John Wingfield’s passion and pass over seals for birds, but at least the colourful ones I think are pretty all-right for now.  I’ve also noticed that I am building my stamina for observations.  When I first got to Kenya, a day that lasted from 8-2 was really long for me, by 12:30 I was staring at my watch wondering when I would get to go home.  Now 2 PM rolls around and I usually stick around for a while longer, either to chat with the guys or collect more data.  It’s good to know that I can last more than six hours out there, but it does mean reapplying my sunscreen, which you all know I despise.

Angela Angela!

It occurs to me that in three weeks of blogging I’ve told very few chimp stories.  This is somewhat strange because I talk incessantly about monkeys at home, and plenty of awesome things happens at chimps while I’m here.

Baby Angela!!

Part of the reason I haven’t been telling stories is the “surprise” that was waiting for me at chimps when I first arrived.  Meet Angela, second born daughter of Mwanzo who was the first accidental baby in the Sweetwaters sanctuary.  Angela was a well kept secret (at least from the internet) for a while as the caregivers wanted to wait until she was definitely strong enough to survive and they could get some good photos of her.  The fascinating thing about Angela’s birth is that Mwanzo has an older daughter, Ajabu, who is just about three.  Most chimps have an interbirth interval of 6-7 years because they typically don’t wean their offspring until 4-5.  Ajabu was completely weaned before Angela was born and Mwanzo was pushing her to become independent in the weeks preceding the birth.  However, Mwanzo was almost definitely breastfeeding when Angela was conceived, which defies the hypothesis that breastfeeding females can’t conceive.

Ajabu tries to get some lovin' from Mwanzo, with Angela

Ajabu is the only chimp who has taken offense at the presence of her younger sister. Most of the time she’s fine, but every once in a while, especially when it’s around naptime, she gets quite cranky that she isn’t allowed to nurse while she goes to sleep.  To her credit, Mwanzo does a great job of dealing with Ajabu when she wants to start nursing.  Usually Mwanzo starts to play with Ajabu to distract her, and after a few minutes Ajabu often gives up.  When Ajabu is being really determined, Mwanzo occasionally lets her get just a few minutes of nursing before pushing her away, or even carries her around for a bit to calm her down.  Ajabu has tried numerous tactics to stay on Mwanzo, most recently including basically trying to pull Angela off of Mwanzo’s back before being rejected, but for the most part is happy to ride around on one of the many other willing backs available in the group.

Ezo playing with Angela

Everyone else wants a piece of the baby, including some of the big males.  If you think baby chimps are cute, just imagine how cute it is when a fully grown male is trying to get the baby to interact with him.  Two adults have tried pretty hard to get baby Angela on their good side.  One was Cheetah, a good friend of Mwanzo’s and Ajabu’s main allo-mother these days, who couldn’t get Mwanzo to let her touch the baby directly, so instead played with Angela a little with her foot.  Ezo, the beta male in the group, had a different tactic and was alternating between grooming Mwanzo and grooming the baby.  He would lie down next to Mwanzo and groom her within view of Angela, and every once in a while Angela would reach out a hand and try to play with him a bit too.

Roi

A couple of days ago it was pretty warm in the afternoon, and George and Roi independently decided that it was time to take a little swim in the water trough.  Roi was adorable, rolling around and splashing, encouraging his group-mates to play with him.  Romeo was the only one who took the bait, and splashed around with Roi for a little bit before screaming, splashing Roi right in the face, and running off.  Roi took it all in stride and kept playing with himself.

George also decided to go swimming, but halfway through his swim decided that the cool bath would be a nice place to masturbate.  Working with primates has made me pretty good at taking these things in stride, but visitors are often confused by primate socio-sexual behavior (mounting in a sexual and non sexual way, anal-genital inspection) and their willingness to do things in public that we never would (say, masturbating).  I’ve explained to plenty of visitors that when a chimp mounts little Ajabu it is less like child molesting and more like a strong huge, but sometimes I still feel awkward watching chimps in their private moments. I usually choose to observe someone else at that point.

I had thought that I was basically a boring but frequent visitor in the chimps’ eyes, as all but the most human-oriented will completely ignore me. This does change around lunch time, when I suddenly become pretty popular, or at least an object of some interest. I have tried to keep it this way, because I don’t want my presence to change the chimps’ behaviors; I don’t want them to think of me as a source of food and then beg me for food instead of paying attention to their social relationships.  Today though, the young chimps were getting pretty riled up as the bananas came out.  Niyonkuru and Uruhara, the alpha and beta respectively, were in particularly fine form today and were swaggering around all piloerect.  Kisa, a low-ish ranking male (it’s hard to not be low ranking out of 5 males), gets very nervous around Niyon when he’s posturing.  He displays all the right submissive behaviors, but Niyon makes him very nervous regardless.  Today while Niyon and Uru were posturing Kisa ran over to me and presented his hand to me, a submissive behavior (one that I think of as being given to equals as opposed to someone higher in rank).  He did this twice and grimaced at him, and I presented my hand back to him to try and comfort him, but obviously there was nothing that I could directly do.

Angela!