Lust to dust

Shall two knights never tilt for me
And let their blood be spilt for me?
Where are the simple joys of maidenhood?

                                      The simple joys of maidenhood,
                                                                         Camelot.

 

OK, I admit that I’m too old to indulge in these girlish yearnings but, somewhere out there, a fetching young antelope must be clapping her hooves together in maidenly glee.

Why?
Well to answer that question I have to go back a month or so (oh, how I procrastinate blog posts).

I was tootling along to my study site, oblivious to the world (you know how it is driving to work), when suddenly I was dragged from my reverie by a horrible stench. Slamming on the brakes and reversing back, I discovered a mob of 40 white-backed vultures milling about on the roadside. Jostled together in a dense clump, the massive birds strutted back and forth, making snake-necked lunges at one another and uttering threatening hiss-growls (the cries of excited orcs).

At first I couldn’t see what they were all quarrelling over.
Then I glimpsed a massive grey rump.
Oh no! Another poached rhino!
(Now that’s a blog post I’m SERIOUSLY procrastinating about).
But then one of the birds leapt into the air – to hurtle with outstretched talons at its rival - and I got a proper glimpse of the carcass.
No, not a rhino.
The huge grey body was, in fact, the last mortal remains of an eland bull. Embarrassingly, the carcass looked at least two days old. Had I really sailed on past twice already?

White-backed vultures (Gyps africanus) squabbling over their breakfast of eland venison.




The dearly departed eland. I didn’t snap this photo until the following day, after the vultures had made tracks (literally and metaphorically); if they see a person at a carcass they won’t come back (legacy of centuries of poisoning).



Now elands go to a lot of trouble to prevent this sort of thing from happening.



Being thick-skinned (15 mm/0.6” on the neck)
and well-armed (those horns are 65cm/26” long)
didn’t save this Romeo from death by stabbing
(or should that be Mercutio?).

Tipping the scales at around 600 kg (1320 lbs), they’re too big to feature on the wish-lists of Africa’s many carnivores; in fact, as the world’s largest antelope, they flee from no one but man. So how did this one go astray?

If you hold your nose (figuratively) and take a closer look, you’ll detect the cause of death. Yep, a stab wound to the throat (he’s got another – presumably non-fatal - to his shoulder; enlarged, in the first photo, by peckish vultures).

This lad died for love.

Unlike most male antelopes, who bicker over their real estate holdings, elands are a romantic lot. They fight only for the attentions of a lady love. Although they swagger about in massive, mixed-sex herds (sometimes 500 beasts or more), the bulls maintain a stringent pecking order, and only the biggest and best chats up the girls. I’ve written before about the devious ways they figure out who trumps whom (without having to go head to head); heck, they don’t even have to lay eyes on one another!



But when two adversaries are perfectly matched, well, what can you do?
Maybe they’d had a bit much to drink, or some young buck had been getting up their noses, but whatever the reason, our very ex-eland and his nemesis came to blows.

Now fights between eland bulls are a rarity. This may be because - when things start heating up - elands resort to flaunting their hairdos. Like rockers slicking on the Brylcream or punks gelling up their mohawks, rival eland bulls smear their woolly quiffs with their own pungent cologne. Peeing ostentatiously, an agitated bull will then step backward and press the locks on his forehead and nose into the dampened earth. Rubbing gets so spirited, he’ll often pivot round and round in a circle, lifting his hind quarters right up off the ground. To complete the effect, he’ll add some pretentious headgear (a cool eland is an accessorized eland), violently thrashing with his horns at aromatic shrubs or weeds until he prizes out a pungent headdress of tattered leaves. Maybe a crown of thorns, or a beehive of grass, will give him that competitive edge.



An eland bull (Tragelaphus oryx) in slightly better health; note the luxuriant quiff. Like bull elephants, male elands go through periods of musth (called ukali) when their machismo (and testosterone levels) soar. Photo by Carol Foil.



But if a bull’s coiffure fails to intimidate his rival, it’s all out war. Clashes are brief and violent. The prize-fighters charge one another from 1 or 2 m/yards, ramming skulls and entangling horns. Using their massive neck muscles, they push and wrestle, striving viciously to lift and overbalance their opponent.

Now before some innocent reader comments, ‘Oh how exciting, seeing elands fight’, let me come clean. I haven’t. This is all hearsay. But don’t imagine it’s for want of trying. The problem is, elands are ridiculously shy of humans; they turn tail and flee at a distance of 300-500 m/yards.

Of course we humans only have ourselves to blame. Transform an animal into a deity and what can you expect?

You see elands feature big in San bushman mythology. San lads must skewer an eland to attain manhood, young girls are ushered into womanhood with an eland mating dance, and eland fat is both the drug of choice for shamanic trances and the favoured currency for procuring a bride. Now, this is all very flattering for your average eland, but not at all conducive to harmonious eland/human relations.



This bull’s from East Africa (southern African elands outgrow their stripes). He can go indefinitely without knocking back a drink, letting his temperature soar 7C (13F) on hot days, to save 5 litres/1.3 gallons of sweat (according to the best calculations of scientists). Photo by Carol Foil.



What’s worse, elands taste yummy. Even die-hard pastoralists - such as the Masai - who eschew dining on game, happily feast on eland. The beef-like qualities of this species didn’t escape European notice either. The 19thC English anatomist Sir Richard Owen (who coined the name dinosaur) was so delighted with eland steak he wanted the species introduced to the UK. In a letter to the Times in the 1860s he wrote, “...we might one day see troops of elands gracefully galloping over our green swards’’.

But attempts to domesticate elands (such as that at the Askania Nova reserve in the Ukraine) have met with limited success, not least because the beasts happily hurdle 3 m (10 ft) fences from a standing start. And despite their ox-like appearance, elands steadfastly refuse to hybridize with cattle (although crosses with their closest rellies - kudus, bushbucks, nyalas - have yielded a few perplexed calves).

Ahh, no wonder eland maidens are so smitten by their handsome knights.



Lady elands lack the males’ quadruple chin and bouffant hairdo. They also sport longer, thinner horns; perfect for lion-skewering. Mums team up to defend their sprogs from heartless felines.
 Photo by Lip Kee.



Finding faerie fauna

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
It's not so very, very far away;
You pass the gard'ner's shed and you just keep straight ahead -
I do so hope they've really come to stay.                                    

                                               The Fairies.
                                               Rose Fyleman


These are the opening lines of a poem written in the 1920s after a series of fairy photographs had taken the world by storm.

The photos were snapped by two young cousins (Elsie Wright 16 and Frances Griffiths 10) at Cottingley, England. The girls borrowed Elsie's dad's camera and photographed cardboard cut-out fairies (copied from a children's book and fixed with pegs) to persuade Elsie's mum to let them play down by the creek (where the fairies lived).
Mr Wright was so annoyed at their prank he refused them further use of his camera, but his wife believed the girls' story and passed the pictures on to the Theosophical Society. Once the society had established that the photographic plates hadn't been tinkered with, a prominent society member – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (creator of Sherlock Holmes) - declared the photos authentic, sparking fierce worldwide debate.



One of the purported fairy photos:
Frances Griffiths with the Leaping Fairy.
Image source: Wikipedia.



Elsie and Frances didn't come clean for more than 60 years.

In the 1980s Frances explained,

"I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun, and I can't understand to this day why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in."

This incident (dramatised in the 1997 film Fairy Tale: A True Story) illustrates our deep-seated need for magical entities. Whether they're dryads, fauns and sylphs, pixies and gnomes, or elves, ents and hobbits, we show an incredible determination to populate the natural world with mystical beings.

But why?

Do we really need nature spirits to feel the enchantment of Nature?

Living here has influenced my thoughts about this. You see it's almost impossible to venture outside without feeling like you've slipped into the world of The Magic Faraway Tree.



All around there are rustles and scurries; an eerie trembling in the grass, a twitch of foliage seen from the corner of the eye, the ever-present feeling of being watched... An eye glints from a rock crevice, a wizened face peers down from the leaves or a huge horned figure looms darkly against the twilit sky.

One of the nature spirits that live at the bottom of my garden: a grey duiker (Sylvicapra grimmia).

Of all the local nymphs, the bushbucks are the most impressive. Haunting leafy thickets, they tiptoe past with an uncanny staccato, high-stepping walk; placing each hind hoof precisely in the print of the forefoot. When alarmed they freeze, disappearing magically into the dappled underbrush. You can look straight at them and see nothing, and then, quite suddenly, there's a face! Right there, staring straight back at you. It's like those optical illusions that jump unexpectedly from vase to human silhouettes and back again, only it's a lot more startling.

A bushbuck sylph. The home-range it uses by day is completely separate from the one it haunts by night.

After experiencing the African bush, I can't help but think that it's the loss of this life-brimming habitat that's created our need for magical entities.
Maybe we conjured a panoply of nature spirits to replace the wild beasts we'd driven away, and to populate northern lands that lie bereft of fauna for half the year. Are we simply trying to recreate our ancestral home: the abundant environment in which we evolved for millions of years?

So what's prompted this reverie on the origins of faerie fauna?

Well a couple of days ago I encountered a little Elemental more adorable than any human mind could conjure.

The dogs and I were returning from our evening walk when we rounded a corner to find a newborn bushbuck lamb standing by the track. 'Standing' isn't entirely accurate; it was sort of teetering on weirdly propped legs. Only knee-high with fluffy dark fur, huge bat-ears and a puppy's wet nose, it gazed at us, all bright-eyed with curiosity. And then, to my horror, it came tottering straight toward us! Of course my dogs went berserk, straining violently at the leash in their attempt to reach it. While I wrestled wildly with the dogs, it wobbled closer and closer, stopping only a metre (3 ft) from their slathering jaws.

I didn't get a photo of this spell-binding creature (although it stood gazing at us in wonder for at least a minute) because I needed both hands to constrain the dogs. I'm sorry I didn't snap my fairy-encounter because images of day-old bushbucks are even rarer than genuine fairy photos.



An anal-retentive fairy? Baby bushbucks won't urinate or defecate unless licked by Mum, and she gulps down all predator-attracting trace evidence (nothing like maternal devotion!). This little cutie is a few days older (and much lighter) than the sprite I met.
The photo was borrowed from here.


Many of the local antelopes leave their newborns hidden in the bull-rushes shrubbery for their first few days or weeks, but bushbuck mums go to an extreme. Their ankle-biters spend four months lying out alone (I wonder if they have imaginary friends?). And they seem to have the gift of invisibility because I've never before glimpsed a bushbuck less than two months old.
So why was this little creature approaching us? In fact, why was it even tottering about at all; I was certain we hadn't flushed it from its hiding spot? Was it a starving orphan? Was it currently imprinting on my huskies, and would be scarred for life (in every sense of the phrase)?

Then the answer suddenly materialised.
Mum, who'd been standing invisibly right next to us (undoubtedly biting her nails hooves to the quick), could stand the tension no longer. She leapt away into the undergrowth, and Junior, realising that something was amiss, wobbled away after her.
I gave a huge sigh of relief.
We must have stumbled on the pair during one of Mum's twice daily visits and her little darling was so obsessed with the prospect of guzzling milk, it paid little heed to who provided it!

Now with encounters like that, who needs fairies?

Back in 1918, Frances Griffiths mailed one of her fairy photos to a friend in Cape Town (where Frances had spent much of her life). On the back of the photo she wrote,
"It is funny, I never used to see them in Africa. It must be too hot for them there."

I'd suggest that there's just too much competition.

Puck? No, a young male bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus). Unlike other solitary antelopes, bushbucks aren't territorial (except perhaps mature males) and they enjoy a bit of company. When two meet, they greet each other cordially and mosey about together for the next hour or two.
Photo posted on Flickr by bwana4711.

The month of yes you May

Tra la! It's May!
The lusty month of May!
That lovely month when ev'ryone goes
Blissfully astray.

It's here, it's here!
That shocking time of year
When tons of wicked little thoughts
Merrily appear!
                          
                     It's May! Camelot, the musical.



Now I appreciate that the Arthurian legend originated in the UK, and that Camelot, however mythical, was never situated in the southern hemisphere.

So the above song must refer to the delights of spring.
Nevertheless, it's entirely appropriate to what's going on here right now.

Outside, my neighbours are rushing around in a frenzy of lust.
The air is reverberating with the bellows of macho guys proclaiming their supremacy, and furtive couples peep from behind every bush. 

Yep, it's the mating season. Tra la!

And don't imagine that I've escaped unscathed.
Every day I'm meeting tall, dark strangers who threaten to sweep me off my feet (and trample me under foot hoof too, but I guess you can't have everything).

 

Winning by a neck. When push comes to shove, a greater greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) will win the ladies.
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.



It's all very hectic. Pumped up on a seasonal high of testosterone, the kudus and waterbucks are strutting around like body-builders with a severe case of mumps, and the wildebeests are actually frothing at the mouth. OK, I don't blame the wildebeests. Around here the species doesn't migrate, so the males have been sitting about alone - minding their territories - for the last eleven months. It's understandable that they're a wee bit excited now. They've got just three weeks to get a bit of the action.



You wanted what??

The territories of male wildebeests are absurdly small (around 1 ha/2.5 acres) but, despite this intensive living, fewer than half of the adults manage to bag a suitable domicile. You see any old bachelor pad won't do; it must be a chick-magnet. And when the girls do come wandering through, all Hell breaks loose. The resident bull dances out to meet them, showing off his best rocking canter and calling feverishly (pinch your nose and say 'G-NU' in a deep voice).

For as long as there are ladies visiting, he hasn't time to eat or rest. And all those civilised rituals - of head-shaking, kneeling and ground-horning - that he's been exchanging with neighbours for months, are forgotten. Any male fool enough to poke his nose in, simply gets head-slammed.

When lady guests are present, a male dashes about herding them away from the neighbours and blatantly checking out the talent. With nose and tail outstretched, he sniffs butt, and the girls oblige by dribbling a little tell-tale urine for him to taste. (Yes, it does make his lip curl, but this wafts the pee into his vomeronasal organ for chemical analysis, and does not signify impoliteness or any disrespect for the fairer smaller sex).

When in heat, female wildebeests are usually ready and willing, but if some little floozy starts giving him the run around, he reminds her of what she's missing by rearing up in front of her with a full erection! 

Male wildebeests (Connochaetes taurinus) are not sophisticated lovers. They repeat the act of love dozens of times (twice a minute) for as long as their partner will stand still. But you can't fault them on efficiency: adult females enjoy a conception rate of 95%.

Of course, in the heat of the moment, it's easy for an excited Romeo, wildly pursuing a coy lady friend, to fail to notice a researcher sitting quietly, surrounded by small, busy mongooses.
So far, no one has actually made hoof contact, but there have been some pretty near misses. And the way I've been feeling lately (after losing two of my three cats to Feline Leukaemia Virus), I'm tempted to fling myself down before them, crying, 'Bring on the hooves!'

But I guess trampling isn't likely to be fatal.

Love is in the air... At four months old, this little guy won't join the landed gentry (who corner the mating market) for 4 or 5 years.
But, come on, it doesn't hurt to try!

But much more annoying than amorous wildebeests (everyone loves a lover, after all) are the male waterbucks. These large shaggy antelopes also hold down territories year round, but they're more up-market in their choice of real estate. As suggested by the name, waterbucks must drink daily (slurping up 25% more water even than cattle) so snagging property with water-frontage is a real boon. However, prices are exorbitant and battles fierce.

So for me, driving home (on a track that follows the river) is like blundering into a film shoot of Gladiator. The horse-sized warriors stand broadside on the road, necks arched, tails stuck out and eyes locked. Without warning, they leap toward one another, thrusting and parrying, but without making contact. Eventually someone breaches the gap, slamming into their opponent with a terrifying crash, and the pair staggers back and forth, horns locked together in a battle of might.


Fighting fit. The horns of male waterbucks (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) are heavily ridged so they lock with a rival's weapons, reducing skewering accidents. The male's neck and shoulders are also armour-plated (with 2 cm/0.8" thick skin) but stab wounds to the chest or belly can still prove fatal. Photo by Johann du Preez.

But unlike sparring impalas or love-smitten wildebeests, battling waterbucks let NOTHING distract them. A car? So what.
One evening, as my dogs and I sat in the car waiting (as usual) for two huge males to sidle aggressively back and forth across the road, Magic leapt out of the window. Yapping hysterically, she raced over to lunge and snap at the combatants' fetlocks.

I stopped breathing, envisioning my beloved dog impaled on a 2m (6ft 5") long lance. But I needn't have worried; the champions totally ignored her. Not even a glance.

After a few minutes of valiant effort, she trotted forlornly back to the car, looking as if all joy had gone from the world. Wizard, who's long harboured a mistrust of waterbucks, watched this silently from the security of the vehicle, and then gave me such a look of 'I told you so' that he might as well have uttered the words.

I'm not even going to mention the lunatic way the impalas (Aepyceros melampus) are behaving right now, since I talked about them last breeding season. Suffice to say that any animal whose grunt is audible for 2 km (1.2 miles) should be a little bit more circumspect in its mating habits.
Photo by John Samuel.

  

A slew of new gnu

Common (or brindled) wildebeests (Connochaetes taurinus). Photo by Dom Cram.

The 'miracle of birth' is one of those tired clichés that slide past us without making the slightest impact.

(Don't panic this is NOT a schmaltzy Christmas post.)

And it's not just the phrase that's world-weary; it's the concept too.
Oh yeah, another birth, another miracle... ho hum.
Unless you're involved personally, unless a small, mewling being is actually placed in your own hands, the creation of a new life - where none existed before - is something we bizarrely take for granted.

Well this week I encountered an antidote to this blasé approach to natural miracles.
It was brought to me by my local wildebeest herd.

Wildebeests (or gnus) are the itchy-hoofed members of the antelope family. They're dedicated believers in the old 'grass is always greener...' adage. Let them perceive the distant rumbles of a far-flung thunderstorm and off they'll go, happily trudging 50 km (31 miles) in search of that greener grass. And of course you'll have seen footage of wildebeest herds - a thousand strong - trekking through East Africa on their annual migratory romp.

A new gnu. Gnu is the Hottentot name for the species. To produce a convincing imitation of the male's territorial call, pinch your nose and say 'g-noo' in a deep voice. Photo posted on Flickr by naddel.

But not all wildebeests migrate. Give a wildebeest a generous supply of short, green grass and a drinking fountain and he'll hunker down with all the gusto of a limpet (surely limpets have gusto). Alternatively you can just build a fence. This may, of course, have dire consequences, as demonstrated by the 50,000 wildebeests that met their maker along Botswana's veterinary fences during the mid-1980s' drought. But I'm getting sidetracked here. The point is that many wildebeests (including the ones living around here) enjoy a happy and fulfilling sedentary life.

But regardless of whether they're nomads or couch potatoes, wildebeests are built to roam. Unlike every other antelope, they don't hide their calves away during the first days or months of life; that would be a sure-fire way of getting left behind. The newborns must find their feet immediately, and they can totter after Mum within - on average - six minutes of birth. But such tiny calves, moving openly with the herd, are dreadfully vulnerable to anything with big teeth. So what's to be done?




Mastering stilt-galloping. Notice that the legs of this newborn are almost as long as his mum's. Wildebeest calves are born during the morning to maximize their practice time before the nightly predators rock up. Photo posted on Flickr by Kibuyu.

I witnessed the solution to this problem firsthand this week. You see I usually pass a herd of wildebeests on my way to the mongooses each day. Black-coated with large, heavy heads topped with devil horns, they remind me of those medieval depictions of demons. The well-grown yearlings cavort and prance, tossing their bearded heads, while the females - bellies rounded and taut - pause in their grazing to gaze at me through long black lashes. Patrolling the herd is a macho territory-owner, bigger and darker than the rest. He stands regally side-on, striving to show off his majestic physique.

Now I can't say I haven't been expecting it; it happens just before Xmas every year. But it's always a shock, anticipated or not. You see when I passed the herd on Tuesday, it had almost doubled in size. Tottering by the side of every female was a wobbly-legged calf. The sudden, miraculous appearance of a whole herd full of little tan calves is utterly awe-inspiring and, of course, a real joy.

To outfox predators, wildebeests opt for the old predator satiation strategy, flooding the market with all their yummy calves at once. And when I say 'at once' that's exactly what I mean. Expectant mums congregate (hundreds at a time in the large migratory herds) at special calving grounds (normally open, short-grassed areas) dropping their calves together. This en masse calf-production begins very abruptly because no one can afford to be early; a calf arriving even one day ahead of its peers is destined for consumption. And any latecomers, being littler than the rest, are also prone to be munched.

I defy anyone to experience this sudden magical conjuring of wildebeest calves without feeling awe, wonder and a renewed appreciation for the 'miracle of birth'.

Built for speed, a calf tests his legs. Wildebeests begin to lose their tan coats at two months old. Photo posted on Flickr by Picture Taker 2.

The plenitude of Mwanzamala

I'm writing this post in celebration of Mwanzamala.

What is it?

It's the Shangaan name for the present month.

Unlike us, the local Shangaan people don't go about commemorating megalomaniacs, obsolete gods or erroneous numbering systems. Traditionally they divvy up their year using a lunar calendar, naming each cycle of the moon after notable natural events.

Wouldn't you love to exchange 'December' for 'first snow' (if you're unlucky enough to live in the Northern Hemisphere)?

Well here, right now, it's Mwanzamala.

Yes, yes, I'll tell you what it means in a moment. First let me share with you an experience I had during Mwanzamala some years ago.
I was diligently working at my laptop (honest) at a picnic area in Kruger National Park (Pretoriuskop camp) when I was distracted (oh no, not easily done) by a movement in the hedge that divided the sprawling lawns. The hedge was about chin-height, very dense and neatly clipped, and some small animal had just popped out of the top, only to immediately disappear again.

There it was again. Furred in soft reddish brown, it sprang up, almost like a jack-in-the-box, before diving back into the foliage. And again! It certainly wasn't a squirrel or a hyrax (dassie) but for the life of me I couldn't make out what it was. I sat staring at the hedge mystified as the creature kept popping in and out. Once I was certain I glimpsed the edge of a long, hare-like ear. And look, a tuft of fuzzy white, like a rabbit's scut.

What was even more strange, was that the creature didn't always appear at the same spot, but was popping out at different places along the top of the hedge. Was it dashing about within the foliage? Or was there a whole colony of the beasts? Could someone at Pretoriuskop be surreptitiously breeding rufous, tree-dwelling rabbits?

Utterly baffled, I crept closer, only to realise that the animal wasn't actually in the hedge at all, but was popping up from behind it. But what on earth was it? I quickly back-tracked along the line of the hedge and - feeling a certain amount of trepidation – tiptoed around the end to see what lurked behind.

Boy did I feel stupid!

On the lawn before me was a crèche of a dozen capering impala fawns. They were playing follow-the-leader: galloping and pronking around the lawn in a large circle, like a roundabout come to life. As the string of fawns raced along beside the hedge, each one gave a prodigious leap, soaring through the air for several meters. It was the noses, ears and tails of these airborne antelope (the only bits to protrude above the top of the hedge) that I'd seen from the far side. Oh the embarrassment!

    

Photo by Melanie Lukesh.






Adult impalas (Aepyceros melampus) demonstrating the manoeuvre (notice everyone is at least a metre off the ground).
Photo by Martin Heigan.


Experiences such as this are common place during Mwanzamala, the month of 'more impalas'.

In the space of just 2 or 3 weeks, all the impalas in southern Africa (and there's well over a million) give birth to their wobbly-legged lambs. Skittish with huge ears and eyes, the fawns gather in large nursery herds and crèches. The idea is to glut the market; even the most voracious predator can't scoff everyone. But of course they give it their best shot, and everywhere you see predators lying snoozing contentedly with bellies grossly bulging.

Impala mums usually give birth around midday, leaving the newborn concealed in cover for its first couple of days.
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

Dinner. As well as the usual carnivores, impala lambs are munched by pythons, baboons and martial eagles.
Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

But it's not just the carnivores that revel in Mwanzamala; it's holiday time for everyone.
Zebras, wildebeest and waterbuck all suddenly adopt an insouciant, relaxed manner; you can almost see them laying out their beach towels and slapping on the sunscreen. Predators? Who needs to concern themselves with those indolent, overindulged gluttons?

This year, I've joined the rank and file, and am also relying on the plenitude of Mwanzamala. You see my study site is currently the domicile of a large male lion who's wandered in from Kruger; may he wander off again soon!

Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

Look before you leap

When I was fourteen I met the love of my life.

Alright, I admit it, he wasn't human.

He was a small Arab gelding. Dark chestnut and flaunting a blonde mane and tail, he danced along with all the grace and elegance of his breed.
And for me - during my fraught teenage years - he epitomised everything joyous and good.

Of course being highly strung (the horse not me), he also had his foibles. For example, he refused to set hoof in puddles (not an issue in the Arabian desert but endlessly problematic during Melbournian winters). But his most distressing eccentricity related to jumping.

Without fail, we'd come galloping boldly up to a hurdle, only to have him slither to an abrupt stop with his chest almost against the bar. He'd then carefully inspect the far side of the obstacle and, once he'd ascertained a lack of large, fanged beasts lying in wait, he'd rear up on his hind legs and leap the obstacle from a standstill. As you can imagine, this was miserably uncomfortable for me, and utterly heart-stopping to watch. Nevertheless it seemed to work, and the dire predictions of everyone who'd seen us in the jumping ring (that sooner or later he'd kill us both) never materialised; he remained my dearest companion for almost 25 years.

Why am I telling you this? Because since coming here, I've realised that my horse's idiosyncratic approach to show jumping wasn't that idiosyncratic at all.

Take yesterday for example. While out on our evening stroll, the dogs and I met a kudu. Now kudus are my all-time favourite antelope. They're regal and stately, and they stand 1.4 m (4 ft 8") at the shoulder. They remind me of those computer-enhanced images of lingerie models, where the elegant legs just go on and on. Clothed in soft fawn or dove grey, kudus are drizzled with trickles of white, to break up their outline and help them blend in. And their faces are simply gorgeous: huge ears, an irresistible bambi nose and big dark eyes.

The horns of the greater kudu (Tragelaphus scriptus) are the longest of any antelope, reaching 1.8 m (6 ft) in length. When making a getaway through the dense thickets in which they live, kudu bulls raise their chins like haughty aristocrats, so their horns lie harmlessly along their backs. Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

Yesterday, as we ambled along a track that follows a game fence, the dogs heard something in a thicket on the fence line. Trembling with eagerness, the pair dragged me forward. I couldn't see what was hiding there (kudus put their camouflaged coats to good use, freezing in the face of danger) until we were about 12 m (40 ft) away. Then a huge kudu bull leapt out. Much to my surprise he didn't gallop away from the fence, he just gave one massive leap (from a standing start) up and over the 2.3 m (7 ft 6") fence. There was a ricocheting boing as his forelegs rapped the top wire and the fence swayed precariously, but the knock didn't slow his flight and within seconds he was gone.
With my usual photographic ineptitude, I failed to capture the event but I did snap a dreary photo of the kudu-less fence, once all the excitement was over.


The fence the kudu leapt. Grubby husky included for scale.



Careening kudu. Renowned for their jumping ability, greater kudus can easily clear 2.5 m (8 ft). Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

 
Thanks to this impressive disregard for fences, kudus are free to indulge in seasonal pilgrimages. I don't see hide nor hair of them in the wet season (because they're off roaming far and wide) but once food gets short, they all come trooping back, to hang out near the koppies and the river. Kudus dine almost exclusively on foliage and, because of their size, they need plenty of it; especially the males (who are 50% heftier). Late in the dry season, I often come across emaciated bulls tottering about, and many starve if the rains are late to arrive. A study in Kruger found that a six-year-old kudu bull (who's just attained adult size) has only a 50% chance of reaching his seventh birthday. In contrast, svelte lady kudus often live to fifteen.

Crown of thorns. Cryptic and stealthy, greater kudus are able to survive outside protected areas and are gradually infiltrating much of their former range (after rinderpest epidemics almost annihilated them early last century). Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes.

 
Fortunately, all the kudus I've met this year are looking OK (thanks to the heavy rain last April) so I don't have to feel guilty about chasing them over fences. But the prodigious leap I witnessed was by no means unique. I've also seen impala, bushbuck, duiker and eland leap over large obstacles from a stationary start. And, thinking about it, both my dogs and cats jump from a standstill. Maybe my darling horse was just behaving naturally??

When love is in the air (around May), kudu bulls slap on the neck muscles. Why? Because rival males lock horns and neck-wrestle to win the hoof of lady kudus.
 Photo by Arno & Louise Meintjes (who clearly share my love of kudus).

Castanets at 50 paces

When you're out in the bush on your own, miles from anywhere, bumping into people is seldom a good thing.

So when I heard the sounds of someone hammering in stakes I was worried.
Clonk, clonk, clonk... pause.
Clonk, clonk, clonk, clonk....
The sound was rhythmic, and quite close by, but the bush was just too thick for me to see what was happening.

Who could it be? I knew the park staff weren't working in the area. And it wasn't a bird (although admittedly some of them make some pretty weird clicks and thunks).
Didn't poachers knock in stakes when setting snares?
I stood listening anxiously to the intermittent hammering until I realised that the source of the sound was moving. It shifted slowly, in fits and starts, in a wide arc around me, as if the perpetrator knew exactly where I was. That freaked me out. I hurriedly packed up my gear and headed home. I didn't know who was knocking in pegs, and I didn't want to find out!

This incident occurred during my first months working with the mongooses, and the mystery of my phantom stake-basher remained unsolved. Once or twice a year, I'd catch a momentary hint of the same noise again, but it was always fleeting and very far off.

It wasn't until last February, when my old Toyota bakkie/ute/pick-up/van (depending on which continent you call home) uttered its terminal splutter, that I finally learnt the truth.
While my car enjoyed a rejuvenating overhaul, the university lent me a rental car: a tiny, three-door hatchback that was incapable of passing over an apple without creating pulp. Trying to coax this thing along the rough, rocky tracks at my study site was a nightmare. It took me hours to reach the groups, inching around boulders and over culverts, sliding across sand-filled creek-beds and braving the paint-scratching embrace of overhanging thorn bushes. Oh, and did I mention it was black? In February. Who would purchase a black car in a region where midday temperatures play cat and mouse with 40C for nine months of the year?
Anyway, it was while I was edging along in my sweaty little black box - fervently cursing all car manufacturers and university administrators - that I met a herd of eland.

Eland (Tragelaphus oryx) are incredibly shy of people, avoiding all signs of human activity. They've the longest flight distance of all African game (300-500m), presumably thanks to thousands of years of human carnivory. Photo borrowed from here.

Although eland are common here, I very rarely see them so I stopped my travesty of a car to watch as they fled into the bush. Only they didn't. They just stood staring at me. Then they started walking toward me. As they inched closer, I suddenly realised I was an utter novelty; no one had ever been insane enough to drive a tiny hatchback out here.
Eland are massive, hefty animals, air-brushed in salmon-pink and equipped with tall, erect horns embellished with a candy-cane twist. Being the world's largest antelope, they towered over my car, crowding around cautiously to peer and snuffle at this strange new animal. I gazed back in awe, stunned by the amazing privilege (it's an ill wind...).

Then it happened.

I heard the clonk, clonk, clonk of my phantom stake-basher.

It took a while, but I eventually figured out that it was emanating from a large eland bull. What was wrong with him? Was he suffering some ghastly form of arthritis?

Once I (eventually) made it home, I trawled the literature. Sure enough, there it was: mature eland bulls make a castanet-like clicking when they walk. It's audible for several hundred metres. But why? Surely it's a 'come and get me' invitation to predators?

This is where it gets interesting. Eland are nomadic creatures who congregate in loose herds, often hundreds of animals strong. Although the herds are constantly changing composition, the bulls maintain a strict hierarchy, with only those at the top wooing the females. But how does a randy eland bull, joining a herd of strangers, figure out where he fits in? He clearly can't test out everyone, yet he needs to know how strong each male is (i.e. how big), how experienced he is (how old) and how aggro he's feeling (because eland bulls aren't all equal in the testosterone stakes; like elephants in musth, they go through periods of heightened aggression, called 'ukali'). The answer? He looks and listens.

A macho eland bull parading his signals. Photo by Blake Matheson.

Research by Jakob Bro-Jørgensen, in the Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya, found that a bull's dark face, his woolly forehead tufts (normally smeared with urine for added effect) and his grey colour (due to balding) are all features induced by testosterone, the hormone that also promotes aggression. By checking out these traits, a strange bull will get a pretty good idea of how antsy a rival is likely to be. (Note to self: steer clear of dark grey eland bulls). In contrast, the bull's goitre-like dewlap grows bigger over time, regardless of his size or hormone levels, so accurately reveals his age (and hence experience).

But the most ingenious of an eland bull's signals, is their weird knee-clicking. This clonking sound is generated by the leg tendon slipping over the carpal bone. And it works just like a plucked guitar string, with the pitch (or frequency) of the click varying precisely depending on the length and thickness of the tendon. Hence, the bigger the bull, the deeper his knee-click. Bro-Jorgensen found that the pitch of the knee-click didn't just reflect skeletal size but muscle mass too. When one of his study bulls lost body condition, his knee-click got higher, as the thickness of his leg tendon shrank in response to the dwindling muscles.
So canny eland bulls can figure out the size of a potential rival from a distance and - if the 'stake-basher' is threateningly big - skedaddle before he arrives.

 Fighting in eland bulls is extremely rare, testament to the efficiency of their 'look and listen' signalling system. Photo posted on Flickr by kibuyu.

Bro-Jørgensen J. and Dabelsteen T. 2008. Knee-clicks and visual traits indicate fighting ability in eland antelopes: multiple messages and back-up signals. BMC Biology, 6:47.

Aromatic antelope

I've committed a dreadful crime.
I didn't mean to. It was accidental.

It happened after the return of my errant water supply. I was so bewitched by the miracle of water-on-tap that I succumbed to a cleaning urge (always a bad idea). And now I think I've seriously blighted the breeding prospects of an innocent bystander. He's probably out there right now negotiating divorce proceedings.

After washing the dishes and scouring the kitchen, I thought I'd tackle the cats' litter tray (my, this is a gripping story). I carted two-litres of soggy clay and unpleasant chunky bits outside and - as usual - tossed it into the dense undergrowth beyond my back garden wall. Unfortunately, the vegetation was inhabited. As the reeking litter rained down, a very startled grey duiker shot out of the bushes. He stared at me a moment, nostrils distended, before leaping away in jinking flight.

Now being showered with a kilogram of used cat litter mightn't seem that bad (it's not life-threatening, after all). But you aren't a duiker (I assume). Duikers are knee-high antelope that creep about in thick vegetation. And scent is their all-important mode of communication.

Grey (or common) duikers (Sylvicapra grimmia) are a veritable treasure trove of scent glands. They've got them between their toes, in their groin and in slits beneath their eyes. These 'preorbital' glands consist of three different secretory layers which ooze a sticky, black concoction. Photo by A Meintjes.

Duikers live in monogamous pairs, and they smear their smelly secretions on trees and bushes to mark out their territory. But, more importantly, aromatherapy is a vital part of duiker courtship. During the final stages of foreplay, the couple presses their preorbital glands together, first on one side and then the other, which releases a heady rush of scent. So what's going to happen when my victim rocks up to the marital shrubbery reeking of cat pee? Grey duikers breed all year round (unlike the other antelope species here) so I'm hoping his spouse is already in the family way, and my vile misdemeanour won't diminish duiker numbers.

 Male grey duikers (who wear the horns) come at a run if their offspring utter distress bleats. He and his spouse will not only attack small predators, they'll butt large male baboons and three-metre-long pythons. Photo by A Meintjes.

So how did yesterday's calamity happen? One or two duikers often skulk in the undergrowth below my back garden, nibbling on flowers and seeds, sniffing out fallen fruits and snacking on carefully selected leaves. They like to poke about beneath the trees when the vervet monkeys are foraging above, retrieving any goodies that the monkeys let fall. I'm always amazed to see my dogs (who chase anything that moves) just sitting calmly watching the duikers walk past. The little antelopes adopt a strange erratic gait: they take half a tentative step, freeze for a second with hoof upraised, complete the step, freeze again, and so on. You've probably seen footage of chameleons moving in just this way. These broken, jerky movements don't seem to trigger the dogs' 'chase' instinct, and I've vowed, that if I'm ever confronted by a large carnivore, I'll give it a try.

Duikers also have another trick, which was the cause of yesterday's accident. If a duiker thinks it hasn't been spotted, it sinks gently down to the ground, in one fluid movement reminiscent of a curtseying courtier. Regardless of how often I see this, I'm always shocked; one just doesn't expect a small, flighty animal to lie down in the face of danger. I can't stop myself wondering if they're closet narcoleptics. So yesterday's duiker was actually lying in the vegetation at my feet, cryptically waiting to be showered with cat excrement.

 

Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth? Don't be fooled. Grey duikers happily munch carrion, and stalk and kill birds and mice. Photo by A Meintjes

I’m stuck in a rut

All around, the bush is reverberating with deep snarling roars and growls.

Imagine the rumbling growl of an attacking Rottweiler, only crank up the volume until it's audible 2 km away. Oh yeah, and there's the occasional explosive snort too.

For the uninitiated these bursts of apparent violence are quite intimidating. I've become accustomed to my new volunteer assistants returning prematurely from the field, ashen faced and muttering, "Er... um... I heard this growling...".

Lions?  Wild dogs?  Fighting hyenas?   Impala.

Impala (Aepyceros melampus) are the most numerous antelope in southern Africa, with more than one million living in the region. And right now it sounds like they're all just outside!

Each May (synchronised between the two full moons) the local impalas mate. Now, before you start thinking that impalas have wildly exotic sex lives, the mating itself isn't noisy. It's the males arguing over breeding territories that create the racket. A study of rutting males at Sengwa, in Zimbabwe, noted 180 roaring displays in just one hour, on a romantic moonlit night.

Displacement grooming is frequent in territorial conflicts, as males waver between attacking their rivals and playing it safe (just as humans scratch their heads when making up their minds).

In East Africa, male impalas hold territories all year round, but here in southern Africa, they relax in mixed-sexed herds for most of the year. However, as the short, intense breeding season approaches, their testosterone levels soar and they go into a frenzy of aggressive competition. In a bid to stake out breeding territories (of around 8 – 13 ha), they use macho displays to intimidate rivals, standing very erect while flexing their neck muscles, tossing their heads, roaring, horning vegetation and even flicking their tongues in and out like professional punk-rockers.

Actual horn-clashing fights are rare (occurring in around 7% of conflicts) and males have a 'dermal shield' of thickened skin that protects their head and neck from stab wounds. Photo by Dougie Cunningham and borrowed from here.

Males that fail to gain a territory retreat to bachelor herds, where they spar with one another to establish a pecking order. Only those at the top of this hierarchy go forth to challenge the territory holders.

Territorial males spend up to a quarter of their time tending the females that pass through, chasing them into the territory's core, tasting their urine for signs of oestrus and, of course, mating. They also patrol their boundaries, face down trespassing neighbours and fight off challengers. As a consequence, they rarely get a chance to feed or sleep, and quickly exhaust themselves. Their average tenure, during the peak rut, is only 8 days. Once they're ousted by a rival, males limp back to the bachelor herd (rejoining at the bottom of the hierarchy) to regain weight and recuperate.

Horning vegetation is not only an impressive visual display, it leaves behind a smear of strong-smelling secretion, from the skin on the male's forehead, that indicates his status.

Female impalas show little interest in the males' squabbles, wandering from territory to territory. Although the population is female-biased, with 1.5 to 2 females for every male, most of the mating is monopolised by just a handful of prime territory holders.