GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 21 2009 | By: gorillasound

The other day Kingo was in the swamp. We were going to follow Kingo in the afternoon. Every morning three trackers go out to make contact with Kingo and once the group is found one of the trackers comes back to camp. When Kamo came back to camp he told us he’d left the group at 10 well in the swamp. By the time we got to the swamp round 11.30 Kingo had already left. So we followed the path the trackers had left for us. And followed the path and followed the path and followed the path! It took an additional hour of very fast walking to catch up to where Kingo was resting. They’d left the swamp and had been travelling really fast to cover that amount of distance in two hours. When we arrived Kingo was sleeping. But he didn’t stay sleeping for long. Within the first ten minutes he was up and moving again. And this was a gorilla on a mission! He was really determined to get someplace and was going fast. Then we heard a male do a hoot series and a chest beat from the direction of the swamp. Oh so that’s why Kingo was so determined to put a lot of distance between his females and the swamp, there was a male there!
However hearing the male seemed to change Kingo’s mind and he had a different agenda. All his females were close to him and far away from the male so he decided to go back and challenge the male. This involved him practically running all the way back to the swamp. I was trying to keep up with him and my tracker, who were both moving really quickly, and watch and record all his behaviour. Not always easy and I nearly tripped on lianas lots of times. Anyway to follow Kingo during an interaction is impressive. He would respond to the hoot series and chest beats of the male with a hoot series and a chest beat of his own, or he would do other displays. The most impressive one is where he runs towards a tree, leaps up and breaks off a branch by grabbing it with both hands and then slapping the ground as he comes down so it goes crack! Boom! And seeing Kingo run (when he isn’t running towards you which then becomes very scary) is amazing. It is difficult to describe but it looks like the slow motion running of a lion when it is chasing its prey.
So after a lot of running, chest beats and breaking branches, Kingo suddenly stops. All his arm hair is puffed up, his lips are pressed to together and he is looking to the side. These are all signs of a very angry male gorilla. He was also quite stinky. Normally Kingo smells anyway. He has this quite distinctive odour which is a bit like apples crossed with grass clippings. When he gets mad it becomes stronger and more acrid and really makes the inside of your nose curl up. Anyway the other male is about 20m away from him but in a thicket so we can see movement but I never got a good look at the actual gorilla. Kingo does a chest beat, slaps the ground with both hands and then does a stiff armed charge towards the other male. There’s a lot of movement in the thicket and it looks like Kingo has won, the other male has left!!
Now that Kingo scared off the other male he had to go all the way back to his females to make sure they are still there so we had to practically run all the way back! And then he kept his group moving for most of the rest of the afternoon. Needless to say I was exhausted by the time we got back to camp!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 17 2009 | By: gorillasound

The Mondika site has been in existence since 1995 when it was started by Dr Diane Doran. A large series of small paths have been created to allow us access to the forest and the areas that the gorillas frequent. It is a grid system and every path has a name so you can use them as points of reference. For example we left Kingo near where Essende crosses Ngombo. The main paths and the intersections are marked with ribbons which tell you the name of the path and the distance to the camp. Over the years the vegetation has grown up, trees have fallen and some of the ribbons have disappeared. So at the moment we have a team of workers from Bomassa who are clearing the paths and replacing the marker ribbons. They started working on a track which was far away from Kingo’s position but he has since moved across to where the paths have been recut. I was following Kingo the other day and he came across the newly cut path with a nice bright orange marker ribbon. He stopped, he stared, he barked at it then ran away!
Later the trackers told me they had seen Mama and Kingo try and eat marker ribbons before but that they spat them right back out. Maybe he was remembering his bad meal!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 15 2009 | By: gorillasound

Finally we managed to put few minutes of the wonderful chorus the Ba’Aka sang in the forest when we went with the families of our trackers to spend the night with them in the forest close Moussapola.
The night started after we had eaten coco, fufu and forest antilope, hunted traditionally with the banda (net). We drunk some palm wine and then they made few fires, sat close and the younger women started to sing and clap rhythmically their hands (I tried but the rhythm wasn’t easy!) while the young boys started to play the drums. After less than half an hour the 4 toros came out from the forest and danced in front of us, appearing and disappearing as the music was flowing. I will never forget!
Audio file will be uploaded here asap.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 13 2009 | By: gorillasound

Today I want to tell you a story one of our trackers, Mbolo, told me the other day after coming back from the forest. Julia and I went in the morning and then Mbolo and Dona, the afternoon team, came to follow the group until 5 p.m.
Those are Mbolo words; I’m translating from Sango to English!

“We were walking in the forest, following Kingo’ s group. Kingo was in front of us walking too. Between us and Kingo was Kusu. Kusu sat down, and then Kingo did the same. Kusu was looking at us while we were approaching them closer. Kingo stood up and stayed in travel position. Kusu imitated the father, but putting himself in front of Kingo. WE were sitting too looking at them. Kusu looked up to the branch in front of him and immediately ran back like if he got scared of something, then went back looking again. Looked at Kingo for a while then came back looking at thebranch. He did this several times until Kingo looked himself where Kusu was looking, and as Kusu did at the beginning, Kingo immediately run away!. Kusu stayed a little more looking at me this time and then on the branch. As soon as he followed the father, I called Dona and we went to look what was all about. From where Kingo was standing before, we looked up and saw a snake lying on a branch with his head down, as he was ready to bite. We thought Kusu did a big favor to everyone!! He has just indicated to his father and us the location of a dangerous snake!! Gorillas are very similar to us!”

The snake they saw was a female Blanding’ tree snake (Boiga blandinji) a quite dangerous snake. Kusu behavior was very interesting, and the question at this point is (as Mbolo suggested too)….does the direction of looking is a way of indicating direction? Anyway, while we were talking and looking to “the dangerous snake of Africa” book, to recognize the species they saw in the forest, one of the old guy (and all the youngs enthusiastically supported him) told me that when a female Gabon viper (bou in Ba’Haka) make eggs, many species of snake may come out. Among little Gabon vipers you can find small pythons or other snakes… I will investigate about this other story.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 08 2009 | By: gorillasound

The other day the whole group was feeding on leaves high up on a Ngombe tree. Kusu and Ekendi were together at the top of a smaller tree maybe 20m below the others. We’re not sure what happened but suddenly they were fighting. This wasn’t the usual play fighting but proper fighting with pig grunting and what looked like hitting and biting. I think that Kingo was as surprised as we were. He kept running along the branch 20m above them and peering over at them. Then he’d start shaking branches at them. Then he’s run further along the branch and repeat the peering and the branch shaking. Then suddenly he must’ve decided there was nothing else he could do because he suddenly sat down and starting eating the leaves of the branch he’d been shaking. The fight seemed to resolve itself very soon after.
But it seems that Ekendi is starting to stand up to Kusu. Later on that day Ekendi found a termite nest at the base of a small tree. Kusu saw that Ekendi had something exciting and rushed over. Ekendi still had his hands on the nest and Kusu pig grunts at him. I think Ekendi then had a little dilemma as he wanted to take his hand off the nest in order to eat the termites but he knew that if he did Kusu would ‘take’ the nest. He slowly took his hand off the nest. Kusu reached out and Ekendi pig grunted twice at Kusu. Then Kusu pig grunted back and Ekendi ran away.
So it seems that Kusu is ‘top juvenile’. However today Ekendi stood up to Kusu, but he had Mekome right behind him, which probably made him more courageous. Kusu was about 10m away from Ekendi and Mekome who were feeding on Ngluma fruits which were on the ground. Kusu tried to approach them to eat fruit as well and Ekendi charges up to him, stopping about 2m away, pig grunting and pig grunting. Mekome joined in and Kusu had to back off, sneaking a ngluma fruit while looking like he was eating basele!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 04 2009 | By: gorillasound

The other day in the forest, while we were following the gorillas we had an elephant following us! Fortunately we were in forest with
good trackers who are not scared of elephants and lead us away from it very smoothly. For the first two hours in the morning I was
following Mekome while Julia was following Kingo with the help of Samedi. At one point they hear some strange noise from the thicket
nearby and they went to see if it was a gorilla or something more dangerous. Samedi was in front and saw the big tasks of a very big
elephant coming towards the Ngluma tree were the Kingo’s group was feeding on. He immediately came back and told me and Bakanga of
the Njoku (elephant) presence. The gorillas tried to avoid the elephant too and traveled away from the tree. We could continue to follow
our focals until Julia and I switched trackers. While Julia was in front with her female, I was behind taking data with KIngo. We were
again at the base of another Ngluma tree where Kingo was finishing all fruits he found on the ground. We were sitting at 7 meters from
him, suddenly Kingo stopped to chew in order to hear some noise coming from behind us. Then he looked at us, then again in the direction
of the sound. He did this for five times at least. At the same time also Samedi was moving his head to hear and determine the origin and
cause of the noise. At the same time Samedi told me that was the elephant, we heard a big noise very close to us, we quickly turn back
and saw the big black elephant coming out from the ticket at less than 12 meters from where we were sitting. As silent as we could we
disappear in few seconds from the spot, leaving Kingo to deal with the Njoku! Unfortunately for us, we took the same path the elephant
had in mind to take, and he just followed us for at least half an hour! We managed to stay in contact with Kingo anyway. Only ones,
while trying to leave distance between us and our follower, we end up in front of KIngo and he had to cough grunts to let us know we
were just blocking his way. Gently Kingo avoided us and we kept working until we arrived to the other Ngluma tree where Julia and Kingo
females were during all this time. After less than 20 minutes we saw Bakanga and Julia coming to us with big eyes saying that the
elephant just appeared where they were and they had to leave since the gorillas were all on the tree and on the base there were just
them and the elephant!!

The Ngluma tree (Duboscia macrocarpa)

This tree is very beautiful. It can reach 35 meters height, its trunk is deeply wavy, the flowers are small and white and its leaves are
very green. The fruits are orange and fibrous with a strong and sweet smell when chewed. Like many other species in this forest type,
Ngluma is asynchronous; this means that each tree has fruits at different times, thus Ngluma fruits are found all year around in the
forest. It’s not a preferred gorilla fruits, but its availability makes this species an important food source for gorillas,
especially during those months in which other more succulent fruits are scarce. As you could imagine, this fruit is eaten by several
other animals, including other apes (chimps) and monkeys. Elephants seem to like it a lot too. Bantu and Ba’Aka population use the
fruit and the bark of this tree to cure cough. I personally tried an infusion of Mobei, Ngluma and other tree barks when I had an
annoying cough here at Mondika and I was very surprised by its immediate relief effect!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 30 2009 | By: gorillasound

Sorry for the lack of blog posts over the past few weeks. The satellite internet connection didn’t work for awhile but is now back online.

October is not a great month. It’s the rainy season so it rains nearly every day. If it rains during the night the gorillas will all be up in the trees in the morning, trying to warm up by being closer to the sun. Then once they’ve come down from the trees they sleep a lot. If it starts raining during the day they’ll find a tree to sleep under. This can be interesting if you are already under the tree Kingo wants to be under. There aren’t many fruits in the forest so they spend a lot of time in the ebuka thickets eating herbaceous vegetation. They have been in the same area of the forest for awhile now and sadly for us its near a sweat bee tree so there have been some days with a million sweat bees crawling all over our faces and arms. And with all this sleeping during the day they aren’t vocalising much. So it’s a wet boring month at Mondika!

Although every day something interesting happens. I’ve been following Kusu and Ekendi so I’ve become more aware of their behaviour. I just realised that when Kusu charges past us and then stops in a travel pose, he’s not trying to freak us out. Well he could be, since I’m not a mind reader, but it is exactly the same way he initiates play with Ekendi. However we just stand or sit there and ignore him, instead of chasing after him and wrestling him to the ground like Ekendi does. So Kusu must think we are the biggest boring kill joys this side of the Mondika river.

And yesterday I was following Kingo through Ebuka thickets. The vegetation is really thick and spiny but there are paths. The problem is if Kingo wants to come back the way he has come and you are still in his way because there often isn’t anywhere to go. So Kingo was eating some leaves and then he decides to go back down the path towards us. Bakombo, Bakanga and I all start squeezing ourselves into this little gap in the vegetation off the path so Kingo can get past. But no, Kingo decides he’ll go off the path and cut through the vegetation in a way that intersects directly where we are all now squeezed together. So he growled at us. Anyway at the time this was hilarious, the whole trying to get away from him but ending up even more in his way, that we were laughing our heads off for about five minutes. I realise that it doesn’t sound very funny when you read it, but you had to be there, it was hilarious!!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 18 2009 | By: gorillasound

I’ve spent the past two days following Kusu and Ekendi. Although close together in age, these two gorillas have very different behaviours. Kusu is more independent and will spend a lot of time just hanging out close to Kingo, while Ekendi will often spend a long part of the day close by Mekome.

Following the juveniles can be tough, everything happens so quickly. Kusu will be happily feeding close to Kingo. Kingo moves away. Kusu continues feeding until Kingo is very far away and then suddenly he’s off and running through the forest to catch up with his Dad. A few times he’s been running so fast he looks like he’s about to crash head on with a tree but he never does. The problem Kusu has is that although he may spend a lot of the day away from Mama every so often he wants to be with her and will start a long search for her as she often feeds far away from the rest of the group. Once when he was looking for her he came up to where we were sitting and stood there as if to ask ‘ok so do you guys know where Mama is?’

Ekendi likes to hang out and play with Kusu who likes to be close to Kingo. That can lead to problems if Kingo is far away from the other females. Yesterday Kusu and Ekendi were playing close to Kingo and the females were heading off towards the swamp. Ekendi then wanted to be with Mekome but she was too far ahead for him to find her all by himself, so he started calling for her to come and get him. Kingo was close by and was vocalising to Ekendi to let him know that he was there but Ekendi wanted Mekome and continued to call and call. Finally Kingo joined in calling with Ekendi but Mekome didn’t come back so Kingo had to ‘take’ Ekendi to the swamp.

Hopefully they won’t stay in the swamp for a long time as the water level is really high with the rainy season.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 14 2009 | By: gorillasound

The other day was Emilie’s turn. Following her is not always easy and never relaxing! She walks incessantly, moving so rapidly from one spot to the next that if you are not always ready to run you could easy lose her. Anyway, we were following her among the rest of the group, who was sleeping, while I saw Ekendi approaching the mother (as always whimpering), and I decided to stay and look how was going on between mother and son. He went directly toward her breast, as a response Mekome aggressively bit him. Ekendi, as well as it happened last time started to scream and scream. At that point, Kingo who was sleeping less than 10m away vocalized, Mekome immediately put her arm around Ekendi, who stopped screaming. After few seconds, Mekome bit him again, but looking to Kingo embraced him again. She did it again another time before Ekendi accepted to just sit close to her. It was really funny to see the entire scene. At the end Mekome stood up and walked away, leaving the little Ekendi dreaming about his milk. During the same days and the following days we still have observed Ekendi and Kusu breastfed by their mothers. We have impression that the frequency (the number of time we see them suckling) decreased but the time when they are allowed to get milk increased. We are now starting to collect same data specifically on them to have an idea about how young gorillas get weaned and how their social and ecological behavior changes consequently.

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

Kingo’s home range is on the other side of the Mondika river to our camp. To cross the river we have a bridge. Over the actual river it is a proper bridge; planks on top of tree stumps, and over the swampy part of the river it is just long branches laid in parallel. With the rain comes higher river levels and much of the swamp bridge is under water.

On Thursday night some of us were woken up by an elephant in the river. He was just splashing around and eating vegetation. I don’t think anyone was particularly concerned, it’s the sort of things elephants occasionally do. However when we woke up we discovered the elephant had destroyed our bridge! There is one elephant that comes frequently, often in the evening to feed. He just steps over the bridge as it is only 20-30cms above the level of the river. We’re not sure if the elephant that night didn’t see the bridge or couldn’t be bothered stepping over it, but he’d knocked all the planks off the stumps.

Luckily we had the construction team from Bomassa on site (they are building us a new dining room, store and office). So they very helpfully stood around and told our trackers how to fix it. But very nicely the swamp section has been added to so we can nearly cross the river without getting wet feet!

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