Tumaren

Vulturine Guineafowl

tumaren — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:13:51 +0000

It was nice to find these fellows in the camera trap this morning. Vulturine Guinefowl are some of the areas most distinguished birds. Fly Tyers love to get their hands on Vulturine skins. The blue, it turns out is rather irresistible to not only the camera but also certain atlantic salmon. We often use the vulturine to find predators. When you hear these birds mobbing something you will often times find a cat or mongoose or a snake sheltering from the uproar.

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Golden Orb

tumaren — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:22:43 +0000

I ran into this Golden Orb spider in the door of our camel boma last week. Fortunately i ran into a small strand first and was able to stop before putting my face right through her beautiful web. Golden Orb spiders in New Guinea have such strong webs that they are woven and used locals for catching fish.

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Goatsucker with young

tumaren — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:42:28 +0000

Goatsucker is a traditional name given to birds in the order Caprimulgiformes - the nightjars. The term was based on a belief that the birds drank the milk of goats. Fortunately for the local masai this belief was long ago proven erroneous. Nightjars are insectivores predominantly nocturnal and closely related to owls.
The other day i ran into the following Slender-tailed Nightjar while walking. It had two young with it which remained so difficult to see it took several minutes to see them after the mother flushed.

here is the adult:

and here is the hidden chick:

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Leopard Tortoise Sex Frenzy

tumaren — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:25:29 +0000

Sorry, I couldn’t resist such a tempting headline. It does not look like much but what you have below is a tortoise orgy. Two males (smaller and darker) following and attempting to mate with the much larger female.

Many male turtles and tortoises can be identified by the concavity of their plastron (the underside). You can see a bit of this concavity in this image of one of the males:

And aging tortoises and turtles can also be done by an examination of the plastron. Just like in trees years are denoted in lines which can be counted out from the corner of each scute (square segments that make up the plastron). My counting on the below image is a rough estimate. Some years when a tortoise did not grow much are hard to count so give or take some years this little male chasing the big female is just a bit younger than me (i was born in 1970). The female’s plastron was so worn that i couldn’t read it. I think we can just say that she is definitely not a flower child,, maybe more like a baby boomer.

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7 Lesser Kudu on Tumaren

tumaren — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:18:40 +0000

Just back from a walk along our boundary with the neighboring ranch Male. Along the boundary i ran into this female Lesser Kudu. She was with a herd of 6 other females/young and one beautiful dark male that only showed himself once. When we first told people about our lesser kudu here many did not believe they were lesser, insisting that we were seeing Greater Kudu that are also around in the more hilly areas.

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Eastern Chanting Goshawk Nest

tumaren — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:28:46 +0000

Kichine, one of our rangers was scouting today and came upon an Eastern Chanting Goshawk’s nest. ECGs, as we call them around here are our most common raptor , principally preying on other birds and reptiles. Our friends at Ol Malo, a beautiful lodge north of here had a friendly agama lizard named Stubby that would feed from the hand and had been around the lodge for quite some time when during breakfast there was a flash before the window. To everyones horor stubby was taken away in the clutches of an ECG.

Here is the one young in the nest:

And Here is one of the parents:

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Zorilla Passing

tumaren — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:24:00 +0000

Not a great picture but its a zorilla anyway…

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Zebra Stallions Up in Arms

tumaren — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:21:28 +0000

It appears that the rains that we received a few weeks back and the grass that we now have as a result have kick-started the zebras hormonal systems. Everywhere i went today on an early morning walk there were zebra stallions fighting, rearing, biting and then falling to their knees as they each strike at the others legs (and more valuable areas). This would suggest that the females are all coming into season and many of the younger stallions are giving the current stallion a run for his money. This is all happening among the common zebras (bohm’s) but I have not yet noticed if the Grevy’s are showing any interest in warring or loving.

(this is a picture i took in the Masai Mara)

Note: Grevy’s Zebra are an endangered species and make their living in a totally different way than the Common Zebra. A Grevy’s Zebra rather than securing a herd that he can travel and mate with will secure a territory in order mate with those females within it. He will tolerate other males on his territory but only he has breeding rights while within his area.

(Here are some of our Common Zebras that came to the drinking hole last night.)

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Striped Hyena Confirmed Breeding on Tumaren

tumaren — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:25:11 +0000

Not less than a month after our first observation of this species we have confirmed breeding within Tumaren. The pups were slightly nervous of the camera at first but within two hours they were relaxed - relaxed enough to chew through the camera’s strap then toss it around for an hour or so exposing some rather artful images seen below. when the camera was located this morning it was covered in dust and had been dragged half way into the den. Luckily they did not bring it all the way in as crawling into a Striped Hyena den to retrieve a camera does not seem like a very fun time.

The Ranger, Parm set this camera. Congratulations Parm!

Here is the parent:

Here are the pups. The rest starts innocent enough but the ending is rather reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project. Look at those ears! Bat like, totally different from spotted.

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Wildcat - The Original Meow

tumaren — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:03:43 +0000

A week ago a lion killed a zebra near camp. When the rangers found the carcass the next day they positioned the camera trap on the carcass to see if the lions returned. The big cats, nervous of people around here, did not return but as luck would have it a smaller version walked by.
Has anyone misplaced a tabby in the thick African bush? Will it survive?
It will survive and probably a whole lot easier than the lions whose kill he passed by. This is the wildcat mentioned many posts back. The wildcat is the original cat from whom our domestic cats trace their line. So,, if you have a pussy cat nearby hold him or her to the screen to show them their rugged bush-wise cousin thriving in leopard/hyena/lion/wilddog country in northern kenya.

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