Field Notes Aug. 1-2, 2009
The highlight was a tremendous thunderstorm Saturday afternoon with rainbows in the evening! During the storm, the waterbuck huddled under trees. When the rain slowed down, they grazed, occasionally shaking water droplets off their heads.
At noon on Saturday, Lucifer (M530B) was on the Juniper Loop and walked into the woods by the NW shed. By 1530, he was between the Lodge and the creek, in the general area of females (total of 14). He remained in that general area until he crossed over to the Juniper Loop on Sunday morning (by 9 am). No food was delivered while I was watching on Sunday. He drank from the rain water in the pellet troughs and he grazed with other species (mostly sable) on the pasture east of Juniper Loop. No females appeared on Juniper Loop.
Lucifer checked out a few females very briefly and did not persist in following them. He briefly escalated with an addax, who de-escalated. He watched addax. He was not following the female that gave birth on 7/28. She was still bagged up.
Although M664O was with the rest of the group prior to the rainstorm, he was with the male calf and a female SW of the Lodge Road (by the Creek) Saturday evening and Sunday morning. I saw no interactions between Lucifer and the young males (M664O is a yearling with horns about 6-10 inches, and M91′F61 was born in 4/09 so is about 3-4 months with horn buds 2-3 inches).
The thunderstorm came out of the SW and at the peak the rain was slanting at a 45 degree angle. Before that it was overcast, very humid and in the high 90’s. Temperature dropped about 10 degrees. It continued raining more softly until the clouds broke with a rainbow about 1900.
After the deluge, the dry streambed was full, collecting water from the pasture and directing it toward the creek. Young waterbuck stretched their noses curiously toward the rivulet, jumped over it, kicked up their heels and ran around crazy.
It had rained the night before and there were still puddles of water. After the storm, the mudholes by Safari camp and on the Juniper Loop filled with 3-4 inches of water. Turtle pond expanded by twice the surface area.
I was surprised to see how green was the short grass. It is less than 1 inch tall, grazed short compared to the 5-8 inch grass in the pool exclosure. The waterbuck spent alot of time grazing. They seem to be in areas where there is a joint grass, not just annuals. It grows along the ground rather than up and has heads like bahia. I thought it was interesting that the females did not go in for pellets, although Lucifer did.
When I spoke with Kelley, he indicated that there had been a couple tenth’s of rain over the last few weeks. The pink rain lillies were out, as an indicator of the effect. I noted that a waterbuck did not eat the rain lillies.
The increaser species we have been watching grow wherever there are seeps, had flowered near Safari Camp. It looks somewhat like snow on the prairie.
See David’s notes about the events on 7/28. Also notes about reassessing effectiveness of vasectomy.
Kelley, Adam and I talked about how different is the behavior of M530B toward the juvenile males, compared to M42. We noted that it also depends on the behavior of the juveniles, because we have not seen M664O directly approaching an adult bull like M663O did to M42.
Kelley asked me what is the function of having a vasectomized bull with the females and calves. I am not really sure, but hypothesize that the young females learn to interact with a male, and the young males learn to stay away from the females. There seems to be alot of social learning going on about who follows who, when. The females “ditch” the male when they move into the bushes. Kelley mentioned that he has seen older males chase juvenile males, which is why they usually try to disperse juveniles by the time they are one year old. Spinage wrote that some juvenile males were annoying to the females, and some were chased by males. I’m curious if young males would be more likely to escalate lengthy chases of juvenile males, compared to older males. M530B seems so mellow compared to M42.