GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 07 2009 | By: gorillasound

Roberta and I planned to do all day in the forest so we could catch up on an afternoon we had to miss due to bad weather. By the time we got to the gorillas it started to rain. All the gorillas were high up in a tree and although we could see Kingo we couldn’t tell which female was which, so we sat and waited for it to stop raining. After an hour it had stopped so we started data collection. At least Roberta did, Kingo climbed down from the tree and away he went. I was going to be following Mama, but all the females were still high up in the tree and we couldn’t see their faces. After much walking round the tree and staring through binoculars we figured out where Emilie was, but there were two females who could possibly be Mama. We had to wait for them to come down. Eventually after more than an hour and a half Mama came down from the tree. By this stage it was 9.50am and I could do five minutes of data collection before it was time to swap over with Roberta!!

Then in the afternoon it rained again, so we got wet and the gorillas don’t vocalise much. Kingo spent all day sleeping or up in a tree. But every day with the gorillas something will happen and today it was Kusu trying to steal a rain poncho. Dona and I were following Kingo who was sitting down. Kusu and Ekendi were also close to Kingo and Kusu was between 7-10m away from us happily eating termites. From behind a tree we heard a female so Dona said he would go quickly and see who it was. We were sitting down next to each other, and Dona was sitting on his rain poncho. He got up and left his poncho on the ground. I was just watching him go thinking its amazing how silently the trackers move through the forest. Then a movement catches my eye and I turn round and can see Kusu almost running towards me, staring at the rain poncho next to me on the ground. I quickly grab the poncho and put it on my lap and start clacking at him so he knows that I’ve seen what he’s up to. He looks at me and then does this long detour around me to pretend that really he wanted to go and sit under this tree over here, far away from me and that really the rain poncho had nothing to do with it.

I can understand that if we left something behind on the ground the young gorillas would be very curious about it, but I was very surprised that Kusu would try to grab something on the ground which was right next to me!

No responses yet

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 02 2009 | By: gorillasound

Another day in the forest, this time we decided to do all day in the forest. During the afternoon I was following Mekome with Dona, while Julia was with Kingo with the help of Bakanga. The group was traveling south, just toward the Mondika river. They arrived very close to the river and then Kingo stopped and decided to think about it for a little bit. He sat at the base of the tree and stayed there for a while. The females were scratching the soil around and the little Ekendi and Kusu, quite far away, were already playing into the water. At the end…Kingo decided to not cross Mondika and started to head again towards north.
When the group started to travel Ekendi decided to approach Mekome and why not get some milk before the walk. As lately Ekendi and Kusu always do, they whimper while they reducethe distance to their mothers for milk purpose. But this time it didn’t worked as he expected. Mekome decided that it was not the right moment and when Ekendi tried to put his mouth on Mekome’s breast, she bit him on the shoulder. Ekendi started to cry and screamed so loud that Dona and I were already expecting the arrival of Kingo. More he screamed and more Mekome bit him. She did it for three times (two on his shoulders and one on the head) until Ekendi, still screaming, went 1-2 meters away and sat sadly. Mekome started to travel as nothing happened, and the poor Ekendi just followed her from a secure distance. Later on the little boy got his milk, but not before another hour and only when Mekome lay down to get some rest!
The squabble of growing up already started for our little (and white-spotted butt) Ekendi!!

No responses yet

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 02 2009 | By: gorillasound

I arrived in the Congo with two pieces of luggage. Actually I just arrived in the Congo as my luggage remained in Nairobi for a few days. Briefly, I saw all my luggage in Brazzaville. Then when I left to go to Mondika my second piece of luggage (a storage box with things like all my forest pants, socks, medicine and batteries) was left behind to follow on another flight as it counted as cargo. One month later!! It finally arrived. Luckily I managed to borrow pants to wear and I discovered you can survive for one month on two pairs of socks. Your socks don’t look so great but you cope.
In other logistical matters, our trackers failed to turn up from Central Africa. Usually trackers leave on the pirogue and then new trackers come back on the return trip. This usually means 5-6 days where there are fewer trackers in the camp so they have to work all day following the gorillas instead of swapping at lunchtime. This time the pirogue didn’t come back. They left to Bayanga on Tuesday the 22nd and were supposed to be back on Friday the 26th. We didn’t hear until the Monday that the pirogue had broken down and the trackers didn’t arrive until Tuesday. That meant the other trackers had to work nine days non stop and were absolutely dead on their feet.
And the eco-guards were doing a patrol around Mondika and found a poaching camp about 40kms away, in the park. In total they found 300 animals which had been killed and smoked. Some bushmeat was brought back as proof (antelope, crocodile, porcupine, pangolin and monkey) and the camp was burnt down. This poaching camp had been in operation for a long time. They managed to arrest two of the poachers, one poacher with a rifle escaped and they heard other people firing at them in the forest. This meant that half the patrol came back to our camp (poachers and bushmeat included) to get us to pass a message to Bomassa to send a truck to pick them up. And since we don’t have a radio (its away being repaired - for the last 4 months!) we had to send an email and assume that it was received as most of the people working at Bomassa are away at the moment.

No responses yet

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 16 2009 | By: gorillasound

Kingo is usually my focal gorilla, so the only data I collect on the females is how close they are to him. However, in the past few days I’ve had a few interesting experiences with them.

Mkpeta and I were following Kingo when Kingo decided to climb a tree. Seeing a silverback climb 40 meters up a tree is quite impressive, but once he’s up there it can be difficult to see what he’s doing. So we are moving round the tree trying to get into a position to see him. We find a good spot, but unfortunately, and without realizing this at the time, we are between Mekome and the tree. Mekome feels very strongly about being close to Kingo, which is why her infant is called Ekendi (meaning love) because of her love for Kingo. So anyway we hear cough grunting and Mekome is about 6m away from us and not happy about us being there. When gorillas cough grunt at you it usually means you are in their way and you have to move. However moving away from Mekome puts us closer to the tree which doesn’t make her any happier. Suddenly, Ugly, who was 15m away from us in a completely different direction comes running at us screaming ‘waaaaaaaaaaaah waaaaaaaaaah’ and then Mekome also starts screaming and charging at us, so we have two females coming at us from two different directions, screaming, shaking bushes and showing lots of teeth. Ugly doesn’t particularly like people and she was being followed by Roberta so was really wanting to charge, and just couldn’t resist rushing over when she heard Mekome cough grunting at us. Anyway I’ve learnt my lesson and will never get between Mekome and Kingo ever again!

The next day I was working with Mongambe and we were collecting data on Kingo. The females had split into two groups and Kingo was moving between them. If he was with one set of females, every so often we’d go and just see what the other females were doing and how far away they were. On one check we were looking for Mama and Ugly. We walked past a large wusa (Treculia Africana) fruit on the ground. It’s about the size of a volleyball. Continuing on we found Mama and Ugly, then turned round to head back to Kingo. We’d just walked past the fruit and suddenly there was this growling noise behind us. I’m still not completely fluent in Sango but Mongambe said something along the lines of ‘We need to step away from the fruit’. So we backed away slowly and Mama came rushing up and put her arms around the fruit and wasn’t going to let go. Kusu then came rushing up to see what Mama had found but she wasn’t going to share with anyone and whack! She punched him on the chin. She then very quietly began to eat it, hoping to keep her discovery secret from Kingo, who would just take it off her.

Kingo didn’t find Mama and her wusa fruit. However Mekome left where Kingo was and we heard cough grunting from the direction of Mama, so maybe she had to share her fruit after all.

One response so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 10 2009 | By: gorillasound

Yesterday the trackers came back at the camp saying that Holland, who spent all morning with Kingo still in the swamp, needed other shoes because his sandals were completely broken by walking in the muddy water of the swamp. He did the rest of the morning walking in his socks! They found Kingo out of the swamp, after walking for two hours with the water at their waists, and when Julia, me and the trackers for the afternoon arrived to the group, Kingo was with few females traveling and feeding in the forest.
As soon as I met Kingo I thought there was something strange in the air. After few minutes the trackers told me to look how Kingo was walking. And yes, his right hand was swollen and he was knuckle-walking only with his left hand. He was putting the weight on the back of his right hand, which gave him a funny limping look. At one point he was on a little hill eating terrestrial vegetation while one of our trackers was sitting right at the base of the same hill. Suddenly Kingo decided to come down, the tracker moved rapidly, and we had a good look to his hand. I immediately asked to Julia if she saw how Kingo was walking and if she could see any scar, but her face was talking for her! It was clear that she got impressed by the size of Kingo coming down the hill, that the only thing she could see was his immense size!! Sometimes I forget how big and impressive he is!! Probably Kingo got hurt in the swamp, from some spines or thorns, but differently from us, his recovery last just few hours. We were surprisingly happy to see him the next day climbing a big tree and walking normally around the forest! We just hope the group will stay out of the swamp for a little while!!

No responses yet

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

Kingo and his family have been in the swamps of the Ndoki river for over a week now. There isn’t a lot of fruit in the forest at the moment and the nauclea trees in the swamps are starting to have ripe fruit. On the 30th of August Kingo’s females left him and went to the edge of the swamp. Kingo preferred to stay in the bemba forest and dig in the soil for food. We’re not exactly sure what he’s eating, probably some sort of root nodule. Its small, crunchy, and he really likes it, he can spend hours digging. The females didn’t want to go into the swamp without him so all afternoon there were calls between them, and Kingo went off in the opposite direction. However he wasn’t strong enough to overcome the wishes of his five females and the next day they were all in the swamp.
The Ndoki swamp is at the extreme of their home range and it is nasty, full of lianas, spines and biting ants. If you don’t watch your footing you can sink in up to your waist and moving round is slow. The gorillas can use the trees much more than we can so moving round for them is easier.
On Saturday we had the craziest day in the swamp! We took over two hours to find the group. When we found them they were in a bai, a clearing full of aquatic vegetation. Kingo then moved across the bai and re-entered the swamp on the other side. We followed. Kingo then decided to turn round and head back the way he came, right into us. Moving out of his way quickly is hard in the swamp, and he wasn’t going to wait for us or change his direction!! So we are trying to get out of his way when in front of me in the vegetation I see a viper. Roberta is behind me saying ‘Move, move Kingo is coming!!’ and I’m replying ‘Snake! Snake! I can’t!!’ So we are stuck between Kingo and a snake, Kingo gives us a very evil look and passes close by us. You forget how big Kingo is until he is very close to you!
So we continue following Kingo, but he can’t make up his mind where he wants to go. He re-crosses the bai and starts eating vegetation then he comes back around towards us so that suddenly we are in front of him and directly where he wants to be! Normally in the forest we would back away but here there is nowhere to go so to get out of his way we have to pass directly in front of him. Kingo is now cross with us, these stupid people, always in his way and so slow, that as we are trying to quickly wade through knee water balancing on mats of vegetation that you don’t want to fall through, he snarls at us and slaps the water, sending a spray of water all over us. And after that we flew across the swamp!! We all ended up hanging off a tree at various angles, Kete and Mkpeta managing to hold onto Roberta and I and the tree. I think Kingo realized at this stage that we were as out of his way as we could manage and he stalked past us. And during the ‘flight’ Mkpeta lost his sandal and he only has one pair. It was stuck somewhere in the water, as it wasn’t floating free. So Mkpeta and Kete had to search under the water until they found the sandal, which took about ten minutes and they ended up completely wet.
Kingo, meanwhile, had moved on, finally deciding which direction he wanted to go in! Feeling rather shaky after our close encounters with him and the snake we continue slowly on our way. Finally it seems he is heading towards the edge of the swamp. Moving is an exercise in three dimensional gymnastics, you have to find a place to hold onto which isn’t spiny, a rotten unattached liana which will not support you or something covered in ants. Then you put your foot down and test the support before you put your weight on it, then you move. You have to step high over spiny bits and lean out round trees. At one point I slipped off the liana I was trying to put my foot on and sank in up to my waist. Kete was just far enough ahead of me that he didn’t see I’d fallen in. This was when I realized I don’t know Sango for “Help, I’m stuck in the swamp”. I should’ve just called out his name but instead I start whimpering like a baby gorilla ‘MwwAaaaaaAAAAAAaaaaarrrghh’ (maybe I’m taking this gorilla vocalization thing way too seriously) and he comes back and pulls me out. Literally. I have no leverage so he has to grab me under the arms and pull me up until I can get my feet back on the liana. And did I mention the swamp water is solid brown, so its not as if you can see where the liana is, its all done by feel!
Roberta spent the rest of the day in the swamp, recording the vocalizations of the females. I went back to the camp in the afternoon. Normally to get out of the swamp we would backtrack along our path. I told Roberta that if Kingo was leaving the swamp I would stay with him for the rest of the day with no food rather than go back the way we came. I can’t remember what Roberta said in reply but at the time it was so funny we both started laughing and then I realized if I didn’t stop laughing I was going to start crying, it had been that difficult. Luckily Kingo was now close enough to the edge of the swamp we could go forward out of the swamp. When we made it back to the forest my legs were all shaky and felt like lead. Kete was leading the way and I was slowly following, he went round a bend in the path and disappeared from view. Suddenly he came running back towards me. I was just staring at him thinking ‘Oh no! It’s an elephant!! I don’t have the energy to deal with this! I’ll just sit on the path and let him squash me!’ Then I saw that he had stopped and was stamping his feet up and down, which means it was army ants. I will probably never say this again but I was so happy it was army ants!
And despite the fact that Kingo did end up leaving the swamp in the late afternoon, it was only a brief reprieve for us, and on Sunday he was back there again.
So after a week of swamp, the swamp is winning! Roberta has lost a toenail, we’re covered in scratches and ant and fly bites. The days are long and data collection is slow. Hopefully Kingo and his family will tire of it soon and return to the forest!

No responses yet

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 03 2009 | By: gorillasound

In the last two days Kingo and his group is hanging out really close to the swamps. In three days they visited the bais and the forest inundated nearby four times!! The reason is the presence of Nuclea sp., a wonderful fruit, big as a big orange, sweet, and as the trackers told me extremely good to eat. During these days Kingo females are pushing strongly to stay into the swamp and feeding those succulent fruits.

Yesterday we arrived to the group at 12:00, Kingo was getting out from the swamp. The morning team told us that they slept out but get in again in the early morning, and that all the females were still inside the swamp eating Nuclea fruits while Kingo was traveling out. When we started to follow him, we realized that he was vocalizing continuously. We had the impression he was waiting for the females to get out and travel together, but they were not coming, and he was getting annoyed. We spent all afternoon with Kingo and Ugly with the little Kenga (her baby of 8 months)just few meters from the edge of the swamp area. Finally he started to call loudly for several times. And very exactingly Ugly helped him calling. She was just 15meters to him and together they were calling the others!! (Or at least to us it seemed so!). Just few times we heard Kusu far away reply to their calls, and then nothing again, probably because he was back with his mum deep into the swamp.
At the end, around 16:30, Kingo decided to go even if some of the females were still far away. We followed him to the first ebuka, where Ugly and Mekome reached him right away.

That night all females went where Kingo was and together went to sleep 500 hundred meters west. This morning they came back in the swamp and again Kingo went out much before than all the others. He spent hours foraging and listening if the females were coming out (again Ugly was with him). Only 3 hours after, we could see again Mama, Emilie, Fini and Mekome, and all together finally started to walk toward the mix forest far from the swamp. We are now waiting to go in the forest for the afternoon and we really hope……that today they will not change their mind, turn back and get wet again because we already have all our shoes covered by mud and completely soaked!!!!

No responses yet

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.

No responses yet

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!

No responses yet

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!!

No responses yet