GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 31 2009 | By: gorillasound

After what seems like a very long voyage I’ve finally arrived at Mondika! As Roberta said in the previous post my very first day was in the swamp, a rather tough introduction into Kingo’s world. Since then Kingo and his family have remained in the forest and I’ve slowly been getting to know them. Kusu, Mama’s almost 5 year old infant was very excited by my arrival. He knows Roberta and the trackers and spent the first two times I was with them in the forest trying to get close enough to me to do a display (shaking branches and mock charges) to see if he could scare me. Sadly for Kusu he hasn’t managed to frighten me once, he’s too cute. The closest time he came to scaring me was when he was playing with Ekendi up in a tree and they came tumbling down, almost on my head! Luckily the trackers are much more aware than me of what is happening and pulled me out of the way.

Already after only two weeks working with Kingo and his family trackers have “rescued” me numerous times. I was sitting next to a tree looking at all the females trying to learn to tell them apart. Kingo decided that actually he wanted to sit where I was sitting and started coming straight at me. I didn’t really notice as I was busy thinking “Oh so Mama is really dark compared to Mekome, who is bigger than Emilie, who has the funny nose . . .” meanwhile Kingo is getting closer and closer and closer and the trackers notice I’m not paying attention and pull me out of the way. If they hadn’t done that I’m sure Kingo would’ve sat down right on me!
So for the moment I’m learning how to collect the data, speak Sango and adjust to the fact that the forest is full of way more ants than I remember! I previously spent one year working at Mbeli Bai where I was observing gorillas using a large swampy clearing from a platform. This time I’m in the swamp and following them through the forest. It’s a big change but it’s really exciting to get a close up view of how Western Lowland Gorillas live for the other 98% of their time.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 27 2009 | By: gorillasound

Last week, during the second time of forest for Julia, we had a wonderful half an hour where Kusu and Ekendi played crazily in front of us. At one point Kusu wanted to show us how strong he became, and looking at the several lianas between him and us, decided to show off. He did a kind of chest beat and displayed to us using lianas for at least three times!! But even Julia didn’t get scared!!He was too cute. He continued to play with his brother for a little more, while their father was eating and babysitting them.
This short video has been realized by Kete Mokonjo, one of our best trackers!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 24 2009 | By: gorillasound

Finally Julia arrived at Mondika. She left more than a week ago her country, New Zeeland, and her previous job to get here at Mondika and help with the data collection for our project on gorilla vocal communication. I’m extremely thankful to her!!!
In the next future Julia will tell you about her self and her trip to Mondika!

When she arrived we were still hosting the C’e ne pa Sorcier film team (French documentary). They came to visit the National Park, Kingo and his family, and all the other sites around here. When she saw them, she recognized Fred, the main actor and famous explorer of the program. She was very happy to meet him in person because the program was her favorite TV Show when she was young.
We started to go together in the forest just last week. Her first time with Kingo wasn’t easy. He decided to go into the swamp, but not in the area he normally uses. It was in a very intricate, spiny and with very deep water inundated forest!! Normally when we go in the swamp with the gorillas, a part the first part in which we have to run behind the gorillas, as soon as they find a bai where they can eat Hydrocaris sp., we can observe them quite well. In fact, they stop traveling and spend several hours in the same place. The visibility is great and a part for too many insects, the swamp can be also enjoyable. But not!! The first day with Julia, it was different. I’ve never went so deep east in the swamp…I was worry we were ending up on the big river (Ndoki). The gorillas were traveling a lot, eating fruits on trees and just a little of Hydrocaris whenever they were finding some. We pass through very small bais, with very tall herbs that we couldn’t see Kingo face!!
Several times Julia and I felt down, but we managed to not get completely wet, so when we went out the trackers said that we did a great job anyway!!!
After hours of being close to Kingo without the possibility of seeing them, I decided it was time to go back. Normally we leave the group at 16:45/17:00, but since we were very deep and far from the camp we left them at 16:00. At the beginning I thought that an hour before was going to be enough, but I miscalculated the time! It took more than an hour just get out from the swamp, and more than another hour to arrive to the camp. While we were approaching the camp, we heard the voices of the other trackers who were coming to find us with the flashlights!!! Yes, the forest was getting darker and darker and in few minutes we were going to not be able anymore of seeing anything in front of us!! I was happily surprised that all the young trackers were already on the trail with their lights organizing themselves to find us….it was very sweet. I always knew that I can count on them!!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 11 2009 | By: gorillasound

In the last two weeks we had very nice tourists visiting Mondika. More than 20 people visited Kingo’s group; they came from USA, Argentina, Spain, France, Austria and Mexico!

Since our Director is in Uganda attending an important conference, I’m helping here at MOndika with the visits of tourists to the gorillas. Yesterday I accompanied Ana and and her boyfriend to see Kingo and Company in action. Unfortunately for them, Kingo in the last few days is spending a lot of time on the trees eating new leaves. We went out at 630, after reaching the place where we left the group the day before. While we where controlling the place we heard him vocalizing from a tree not far away from where we were. We followed his voice and we found him happily eating Ngombe leaves 30 meters height in the tree. With him in the tree there were Mekome, Emilie, Ekendi and Kusu. The tree was quite big and Kingo was moving on it quite comfortably. After an hour Kingo was still up in the tree and for most of the time was difficult to see him, because he was so high in the canopy that all the leaves and branches was impeding us to see him. Suddenly we heard the typical sound that precedes copulation. Incredulous, me and the trackers looked up and ohhh yes, it was time for sex! Kingo called and Mekome, sorry but I have to repeat, Mekome approached him and copulate with him on the tree. It was surprising for two reasons: gorilla copulations on the tree have been observed before but considered rare; secondly, Mekome did not copulate with Kingo since she had Ekendi, so for at least 4 years! As you know she proposed several times to Kingo in the last few months, but the big guy always refused. The trackers and me we were terribly excited and worried because we couldn’t see our Kingo moving so much so high on a tree!!
After less than an hour, Kingo called again and Mekome run towards him to mate again….still in the tree. Likely, Ana is a great photographer and captured this moment in a picture I will update asap. Finally, after 2 and half hours spent in the tree, Kingo decided to come down and show to the tourists how big is he! We walked with him for a little before he started to call again for sex. Mekome, who came down just after Kingo, was ready and happily approached him again. The afternoon team came after a little while. When they returned to the camp they told us that Kingo had copulated also three times with Emilie in the afternoon. Since Mekome started again to copulate, we have four females, who will copulate with Kingo for the next months until the arrival of a new born (mostly we are waiting for Fini and Emilie babies!). Since females seem to compete for sex, the next months will be full of action!!!!

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