Gorilla Sound

We left the camp, walked on the familiar trails present in the home range of Kingo to find the gorillas. We arrived to the panjee (are signs the trackers leave the day before in the forest when they leave the group to easily find them the morning after).
And here he was, eating terrestrial herbaceus vegetations, the most common gorilla food, abundant and yearly present in the forest. During the last two months gorillas are eating mostly only THV and bark and new leaves of few species of trees, since no fruits can be found. Immediately we looked for the positions of his females while the young male infant, Kusu, came closer to see us. It always amazed me how calm they are.
We started to take simple data as the activity and the food he was eating, while I showed to Aylin how to follow him. The trackers became the professors of Sango for Aylin! They explain her what kingo was eating, speaking very slowly to help her to understand.
Unfortunately, Kingo stayed all day in an area close to a Banga tree, a huge tree with small fruits (not eaten by gorillas) where a big nest of small flies is. Those small flies can just cover your face and body to get your transpiration. They can bacome very annoying, they get in your eyes, ears, mouth, cloths, making very difficult to watch the gorillas.
But this was our welcome in the forest!! Patrice uses to say…if you love the forest, you love everything of it, good and bad! And I agree!!!

During the last days rained a lot, almost everyday. We went a little later in the forest to contact the gorillas because with the noise of the rain for the trackers is very difficult to hear the noise of elephants. elephants are the most dangerous animal in the forest here. Yes, there are also leopards, but normally they see you and you never see them. Contrarily, elephants if the smell you they can charge and run towards you.
The trackers are very experienced and can hear them much before they can hear or smell you, and they can lead the entire team away from them safely. With the rain it’s impossible to hear any noise. When we arrived to KIngo all group was on the trees eating leaves. As soon as the rain stopped, Kingo came down to get a looong nap, while his females remained on the trees to get some warmer air. Under the vegetation where we were we continued to get wet from the water coming from the tres and leaves, it was quite cold!