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.

  

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.