The 2022 Africa Journals, Chapter 34: The Trip to the Musiara Swamp, Part Two

 Chapter 34:

The Trip to the Musiara Swamp

Part Two

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.--Edward R.  Murrow

I'm confused.   We were supposed to go the Musiara Swamp but I don't recognize anything.   I remember a windmill where villagers can get potable water, but after that it's all unfamiliar to me.   And the windmill was right next to the swamp that teemed with birds and wildlife.

The famed BBC series called Big Cat Diary was filmed mostly in the Swamp and followed the Musiara lion pride.   

"When do we reach the swamp?" I ask Marg.

"We're here.   This is it," she says.

I look out across a shallow basin filled with dry yellow grass and try to fit  that with my memories of lush green vegetation and lots of water.   Then, it hits home.   The terrible drought that has ravaged much of Kenya has done its damage here, too.

Fatty, Fatty, two by four, couldn't get through the kitchen door.

A passage between rocks is wider.

In a small channel of water, invisible to us, a yellow-billed oxpecker sits on the back of a Cape buffalo.

Francis takes us to another spot on the Mara river where we can view hippos.   This place I remember.

There's an African fable that explains why hippos yawn.   The abridged version is that one day a hippo went to the river to cool off.    The crocodiles that lives in the river said, "No.   You will eat all our fish."  The hippo promised not to eat any fish and to yawn once in a while to prove to the crocs that he was keeping his promise.

Nice fable, but the truth is that yawning is a territorial display, a threatening display.   Still, it's cool to see the huge tusks in a hippo's mouth that can slice a crocodile in half.

Here's a site that lots of info on the corpulent river horses.

https://www.wildcard.co.za/10-surprising-hippo-facts/

Back to the water.

So while the hippo returns to the water, so do we--back to the ponds by the airstrip.

This is a black-headed heron.   The light makes its body feathers look blue, but they are actually gray.

And in what is one of my favorite photos of the whole trip, the heron stares at the gray crested crane as if to say, "Dude!   Cool  hairdo!"

And then remembers that staring isn't polite.

In part of the pond there are a number of bird species.

In the first photo below is a sleeping yellow-billed stork.   Look at its legs.   They appear to be white but they are red where they grow from the body.   What's  up with that?

Yellow-billed storks, a black African open-billed stork, and some goofy-looking Egyptian geese.   Again, look at the storks' legs.

Again with some white legs and some red legs.   The reason is that the storks excrete on their legs as a cooling behavior.   Bird urine is white so their legs get coated with urine and dry.  It's called "urohidrosis."   Fascinating, right?    Maybe I'll be an animal behaviorist when I grow up.

By the way, that black bird on the right is an African Open-billed stork, so called because the upper and lower mandibles don't touch in the center.   They feed mostly on snails and mollusks in water.

This is the beautiful saddle-billed stork.   These wading birds can reach five feet in height, though some in captivity were measured at six feet.

This is a male, with dark eyes and yellow wattles.

And this is a female, identified by yellow irises.

Here's another wattled bird, though considerably smaller that the storks.   It's a wattled lapwing.

This monitor lizard was in a dry mud track in the road as we headed back to camp.

The long forked tongue of this reptile acts as a smell sensory device and the fork enables it to smell in "stereo."   Monitors do secrete venom but it is not fatal to humans.   The biggest danger from bites and scratches is infection.

And then we were back cat camp with a staff member greeting us.

I headed off to my tent to download the day's photos onto portable external hard drives, with the help from Marg's Blue Mac.   I"m using her computer because my Lenovo travel computer got fried in Nairobi when I plugged it in.

Notice the white drapes on the wall.   At night, these drapes covered all the walls of the tent.

Out of sight in this photo, and on the desk above, is a device that allows telephone calls between the staff and other tents.   It's the first camp I've stayed in where this is done.   A lot of camps don't even have Wi-Fi available in the tents, but only in a common area.   

Having Wi-Fi in your own tent is a LUXURY!!!    That's my measure for the excellence of a camp.

Dinner this evening was a wonderful assortment of typical African food and I had to try a bite of the many dishes.   The tent was too dark for photos, but I liked everything.   I did not, however, taste the dish with kale.   

 Eating kale is like eating a plastic dish scrubber.

We finished dinner and had a dessert.   While we sat and enjoyed our last evening in camp before heading for home, I heard a familiar sound.    It was men singing!   And I knew right away what was coming.

Sure enough, a group of men danced (African-style) into the dining area and continued singing and dancing and jumping into the air to prove their prowess.

And the camp manager brought out a birthday cake for me!  It was a small "fruit cake," though not what you think.    This cake was made from the same kind of cut fruits we had been enjoying during our stay.

I made an attempt to slice it, but when it  became apparent to me that I was making a mess of it, I asked the manager to do it, and to make sure all the staff enjoyed a slice, too.

Me and my birthday cake.   I'm wearing a blanket across my shoulders because I'm seated near the door and there is a slight breeze blowing across me.   My "hubby" Randy is at my right.   Photo by Virginia Huang

Marg presented my with an African beaded camera strap.

Beautiful, isn't it?

When I got back to my tent, there was a gift from the Great Plains camp.

Look at this fabulous gift wrap!

Ah, my, what a day.

Tonight marks the end of staying in camps, but there is more to come when we return to Nairobi!!!

Also tonight, I take stock of my bites and bruises.   The "black eye" from an insect bite is almost invisible.

The hematoma from a broken vein in my palm is rapidly disappearing.

I still have a plethora of scabs or red spots from a couple dozen insect bites.   They will fade after a few months.

And now, I have a new bite on my ankle.   It's like none other I've ever had.   Marg says it's a spider bite.

Ah, well, you  know the saying, "Everything in Africa bites, scratches, or stings."    Why am I so blessed?

The 2022 Africa Journals, Chapter 30: Those Impossible Hyenas and a Photo Dump (PT. 3 of A Great Day)

 (Note: to see photos in a larger format, click on one to open a film strip at the bottom, then scroll through it.)

    Chapter 30:

Those Impossible Hyenas plus a Photo Dump

Part Three of a Great Day for Everything.

Integrity's a neutral value. Hyenas have integrity too.   They're pure hyena.

-Jonathan Franzen

"It's a male," I say in reference to a hyena cub we're photographing.

"How do you know?" asks my driver /guide.    I show him the photograph.   

"I can neither confirm nor deny," he says cryptically and reaches for his canvas-covered mammal book on the Land Cruiser's dashboard.

He hands the book to me and points to a specific paragraph. He gives me a few moments to read it.   Then he says, "I can neither confirm nor deny."

And I sit there utterly astonished--mouth open, jaw dropped, eyes wife open.

Recently, I posted the photo and the above conversation on Facebook, but noted that I would probably go to Facebook jail for a lifetime  for "violating their community standards" if I repeated the information in the following link.

I don't fear Facebook here, but nonetheless I'd rather not copy and paste  it.   I will simply furnish the link and you can read if you, too, want to be educated and astonished as to why it's darned near impossible to sex hyenas.

The link is complete with explanation, photos, and diagrams.   And what a diagram!!!

https://wholeeartheducation.com/hermaphrodite-hyenas/?fbclid=IwAR0KofsLhL9dDQkQ_A_5iVThtdt6TdJovdhKaOiO0ChP4gY0fl8gmUKK8n0

As for  hyenas, sometimes they're cute, most times they aren't.

Hyenas with with what's left of a wildebeest head.

Hyenas are a necessary part of the African ecosystem, often cleaning up carcasses left by larger predators or stealing carcasses themselves from whatever animal brought it down.   They are also quite capable of taking down antelope and wildebeest themselves.

There are three kinds hyenas--the spotted, which is the most prevalent, the brown, and the striped.   The Maasai Mara is over-run with spotted hyenas, in my opinion.

Standing three feet or less at the shoulder, the sloping back of the hyena gives it a sneaky appearance but its short compact frame can reach speeds of 40mph.   They also have the unpleasant habit of drooling.

With a biting force of a bone-crunching 1100psi, there are not many animals willing to chance a broken leg by challenging a hyena.

Hyena spa.   They can often be found relaxing in cooling water or mud.

Hyena and cub.

Peeking out of an underground den.

The black blob on the right side is a much younger cub.   They are all black when born.

From Safari Africana: Hyenas are witty, courageous, and smart animals, and have no apologies to make. They are also incredibly caring and nurture their cubs better than many other animals. Many people assume that they are closely related to dogs, but in the real sense, hyenas are more alike to cats than they are to dogs.

Hyenas sleeping on the road.   The dirt is often warmer and dryer than the surrounding grasslands.

From National Geographic:  Although hyenas appear similar to dogs, they are actually more closely related to cats.

My disdain for these animals would be substantially less if they didn't steal food from cheetahs or kill the cubs of the endangered cheetahs.   Or lion and leopard cubs, too.  But then, those cats also kill hyena cubs.

There are two hyena dens close to camp and we visited them several times.

***

Now it's time for a photo dump, those photos that didn't get posted yet because there were too many to fit in a different post.

A yellow winged bat sleeping in a tree next to my tent.   These bats have wingspans of  12 inches!

Here;s an image of the bat that I borrowed from Pinterest:

NOT MY PHOTO

Gray-headed kingfisher.

Rufous-naped lark.

Slender mongoose.   These cute little mongoose are 12 to 15 inches long plus a tail that's 9 to 13 inches long.

White-crowned shrike.

This is a bushbaby nest in a tree next to SHelly'stent.

And this is the best shot I could get of the small animals.   The camera wanted to focus on limbs, not eyes and ears.   Bushbabies are primates with large eyes, long rear legs, and furry bodies.

A crop of the photo above to show the little fingers of a bushbaby.   We had a lot of fun watching these little creatures leap from tree to tree at night.

This is a young bushbaby I am holding at a rescue place in Botswana a couple years ago.

The stunning violet-backed starling.   Also called a plum-colored starling.

Water thick-knee.   Note the large eye.

Female gray woodpecker.

The always magnificent gray crowned crane.

Dark blue pansy butterfly

A Thompson's gazelle with a bent horn and flies all over its head.

Warthog sow with a piglet.

At Great Plains Expedition camp.   A kitchen to die for.