Cry of the Kalahari

by Mark James Owens

  A flock of thirteen guinea fowl had found camp at the beginning of the rainy season. At least once, often twice, a day they took a stroll along our kitchen counter, which consisted of boards laid across the tops of water drums. They raked their homy feet through our tin dinner plates, scattered knives, forks, and spoons onto the ground, flipped the lids off the cooking pots, and devoured any leftovers lying about. And when they found a loaf of freshly baked bread, pieces flew off it as if it were being shot to bits by a Gatling gun. At first we thought they were cute, but the noise they made early in the morning, after a long night of following jackals, was difficult to tolerate, and they hogged all the mealie-meal we scattered on the ground for the other birds.

  I finally decided to discourage the guinea fowl flock from coming into camp. That I reached this decision near Christmas, when we had gone for nearly four months without fresh meat, was perhaps no coincidence.

  Early one morning, I propped a box up with a stick, weighted it with a stone, and sprinkled some mealie-meal under it. I tied a nylon fishing line to the prop and strung it along the ground to the opposite side of the Land Rover, where I hid behind the wheel. Not long after sunrise the guinea flock arrived with its piping gabble, raising the dust as it scratched and pecked its way into camp. Almost immediately one of the cocks spied the trail of mealie-meal leading beneath the box and, without hesitation, began his rapid-fire pecking along it, leading his entire flock toward the trap. I could already taste freshly roasted guinea.

  Four plump hens and the cock crowded beneath the box, gobbling up mealie-meal as fast as they could. I flicked the fishing line. The box plopped to the ground in a cloud of dust and flapping wings. The guineas railed loudly. I jumped from behind the truck and hurried forward while the birds eyed me suspiciously.

  The trap lay perfectly still, not a peep from inside. I looked around: Thirteen pairs of guinea eyes glared at me. I was dumbfounded. What had gone wrong? They couldn’t be all that quick and crafty; after all, they were little more than a bunch of barnyard chickens. I’d get one the next time. I reset the boxtrap and ambled discreetly toward the Land Rover. By this time Delia was sitting up in bed grinning.

  The guineas pecked their way back to the trap. This time only two ventured beneath it. I yanked the line and the box hit the ground. I quickly counted heads again. “One, two, three, four, five—Damn!” Thirteen squawking guineas and one snickering wife. On the third try the birds only pecked to the edges of the box—not one would go under it.

  On our self-appointed Christmas morning, the guineas were back as usual, scattering our pots, pans, and dishes about with a loud clatter. We ignored each other as I sifted the weevils from some flour and baked a loaf of caraway bread in the bucket oven. Delia made a meat pie with the last of the rock-hard biltong Bergie had left us. Our Christmas dessert was another pie made with maretwa berries we had picked from the bushes of West Prairie.

  Christmas was a hot day and, despite efforts to cheer ourselves, without family or gifts we were short on holiday spirit. We sang a few carols, and then, feeling somewhat lonely and let-down, we drove to the den and spent the afternoon with the jackals.

  Hansel and Gretel, now about seven weeks old and three-quarters as tall as their parents, scampered out to us as we were parking the truck. Their saddles were beginning to gain definition, changing from a soft grey to a bold black. They had gained much skill at catching insects and even took a mouse occasionally, displaying fairly sophisticated hunting behavior. Captain and Mate roamed farther from the den now and brought back much less food.

  That Christmas night, before Captain and Mate left to hunt, a strange type of jackal call rang out from the North Tree area. The jackals immediately jumped to their feet. With Hansel and Gretel trailing their parents at a distance, the whole family hurried toward the unusual nasal weeuugh! . . . weeuugh! . . . weeuugh! that echoed urgently over and over again.

  By the time Captain and Mate arrived at the scene, six jackals had already surrounded a patch of tall grass, all of them voicing that strange call as they sprang up and down on their stiffened legs. Again and again they bounced into the grass and back out again, a split second later. Captain and Mate joined the ritual while Hansel and Gretel sat on their haunches, watching.

  After about fifteen minutes of this, a leopard came slinking out of the thicket. His face and chest covered in blood, and still surrounded by springing jackals, he laid back his ears and walked away. The jackals followed for forty yards, calling, darting, and bouncing all around him. Then they trotted back to the grass patch to scavenge the springbok remains he had left behind.

  Jackals are a favorite prey of leopards. The strange call and the associated jumping display probably allow them to keep an eye on the predator in tall, thick cover and to communicate the danger to other jackals. It serves the same purpose as the mobbing of a predatory snake by birds.

  After a time, Hansel and Gretel entered the long grass area where their parents and other jackals were squabbling over the springbok carcass. Captain and Mate had been unable to hold off the invasion of Bonnie and Clyde, Gimpy and Whinnie, and two other pairs from outlying territories. Intense bickering around this large food resource enforced the strict social hierarchy that existed among members of the population throughout the year.

  When Hansel and Gretel tried to join in the feeding, both of their parents turned on them, snarling aggressively, their mouths pursed in threat and their tails lashing. Apparently surprised and intimidated, the youngsters retreated a short distance. These were not the tolerant parents they had known. Both Captain and Mate had been testy of late and had rebuffed their attempts at play, but these serious threats were something new. They were being treated as competitors, and Captain directed most of his aggression toward Hansel. Gretel tucked her tail and sat on it, opened her mouth wide, and raised her front paw in submission. She would have to wait her turn to feed.

  Hansel’s saddle was black and becoming more and more distinct, and silver hairs were beginning to show through. He was close to adulthood in size and markings. He persistently moved in on the carcass, only to be rebuffed by Captain. Finally he had had enough. The two males faced each other snarling, hackles stiff as wire. Captain charged and hit Hansel with his shoulder. The youngster took the blow and delivered a hip slam in return. For a second they were a mass of boiling fur. When it was over, Hansel advanced boldly and fed next to his father. He had developed the competitive spirit essential for winning a place in the adult social hierarchy, where a jackal with higher status gains longer feeding time at carcasses, as well as superior mates and better breeding territories.

  The encounter between Captain, Mate, Hansel, and Gretel was typical of the “parent-offspring conflict”2 that occurs in many animal species, including humans, and is perhaps most visible at weaning. Anyone who has ever heard the screams of a young baboon when first turned out of its mother’s nest, or seen the facial expression of a kitten spat at by its parent after weeks of being cuddled, fed, and groomed knows that such conflicts can be severe. The classical explanation for this behavior is that the parent is still caring for the juvenile by forcing it to become independent, which is necessary for its survival. A more recent theory argues that there is a time, after the young are weaned and have become larger and more demanding, when it becomes too costly for the mother to provide food, energy for defense, and other resources for her subadult young. Instinct advises her to devote the same efforts toward the production of new offspring. She is also encouraging her young to begin breeding themselves. This is a genetic benefit to her because her own genes will be passed on by the young she has just alienated, as well as by herself.

  In each Kalahari dry season, probably because of low prey densities, jackal pairs break up and their breeding territories completely disintegrate. In the next mating season, near the beginning of the rains, different pairs establish new territories along the riverbed. As stated earlier, we saw no evidence that families stay together, with adole
scents helping to rear the new litter, though this may occur when several good consecutive rainy seasons occur. But paired or not, the jackals in Deception Valley maintained a strict social hierarchy from year to year.

  On this Christmas evening, all of the jackals eating at the springbok carcass suddenly paused, looking into the darkness to the east. Then they began feeding faster, almost frantically, seizing meat on the neck and along the spine and lunging backward to tear it free. I lifted the spotlight and swung it eastward. The large, wide-set emerald eyes of a brown hyena were watching from 125 yards away. Apparently she had heard the mobbing call of the jackals and knew a leopard was in the area and that there was a possibility of a kill. We sat unmoving, hoping, as we had so often before, that she would come to feed despite our presence.

  The hyena circled the truck several times and stood watching for a long while. Finally, with her hackles standing up along her shoulders and back, she walked toward the carcass. From her udders we could see that it was a female. The jackals gobbled the meat even faster until, at the last moment, they leaped over the dead antelope and dashed out of the hyena’s reach. The brown turned and looked at the Land Rover for several seconds before beginning to feed. Then, puffing and straining, she started shattering bones and ripping the flesh from the skeleton. The circle of displaced jackals pulled in around her, but whenever they tried to snatch a bite, she went thundering after them with gaping jaws.

  After a time, most of the jackals moved off a few yards and lay down, except for Captain, who circled around and came slowly, almost nonchalantly in behind the feeding brown. The hyena freed a length of springbok leg, laid it at her feet, and continued to feed on the softer parts near the ribs. Lowering himself on wiry legs, Captain crept closer and closer to the unsuspecting brown hyena, until he was crouched with his nose to her rear. Still she continued to feed, unaware. Slowly he raised his muzzle to the base of the brown’s flicking tail; he held it there for several seconds. Then, as the tail moved aside, he bit the hyena on the backside. She whirled to her left and Captain dashed to the right, seizing the springbok leg and a large swatch of dangling skin. It was almost more than he could carry, but by holding his nose high in the air he could run—and run he did.

  Hair streaming, her jaws open wide near the tip of Captain’s tail, the hyena chased him in great circles across the riverbed. Whenever it seemed he was about to be swallowed up, Captain would make a turn too sudden for the lumbering hyena to follow. On he ran, his muzzle sagging lower and lower with his heavy loot, until finally he dropped it. Panting heavily, he watched the hyena carry it back to the carcass. Once again the brown laid the leg at her feet and began to feed.

  Little more than two minutes later, Captain was back, sneaking up on the hyena again. It looked like an instant replay: Captain chomped the brown in the rear, stole the springbok leg and fled, his tail flying, with the hyena in hot pursuit. But this time he escaped into the bush at the edge of the riverbed. The hyena sloped back to the carcass, licking her chops, ears laid back in evident disgust. Eventually she lifted all that remained of the carcass and walked with it into the thick bush of North Dune.

  It was after midnight when we turned into camp. The headlights swung among the trees and fell on another brown hyena—standing near the water drums, not fifteen yards away! Unconcerned with us, she continued smelling her way through camp. Eyeing our bag of onions hanging from a tree, she stood on her hind legs, grabbed the net sack by the comer, and pulled. When a cascade of bulbs thumped over her nose and onto the ground in a shower of papery skins, she jumped back. After smelling one carefully and biting into it, she shook her head and sneezed. At the fire grate (the coals had died hours before) she took the water kettle by its handle and strutted from camp. Putting it down a few yards away, she jarred the lid off with her nose and lapped up the water from inside. Then she raised her tail and began to walk away, but before she disappeared she stopped and looked directly at us for several seconds. There was a small white star on her forehead.

  5

  Star

  Delia

  How I wonder what you are . . .

  —Ann Taylor

  WE HAD had a Kalahari Christmas after all: The brown hyenas had accepted us at last. We woke up early the next morning full of kick and ready to go, in spite of the late night’s work. Sipping from enamel cups of steaming tea and talking over the experiences of the previous night, we strolled from camp north toward Acacia Point, as we often did on cool mornings.

  “I don’t believe it, look over there.” Mark pointed to the edge of the heavy bushes on North Bay Hill about 300 yards away. A brown hyena was walking directly toward our truck spoor on a course that would intercept ours. She had apparently not seen us and was moving quite fast through die belly-high grass, apparently in a hurry to reach her bed before the sun rose any higher.

  We stood perfectly still, not knowing quite what to do. If we started back to camp, our movements might frighten her. It was one thing for the hyenas—or any of the other animals—to accept us in the truck, but they were generally much more intimidated by the sight of us on foot. Very slowly we each sat down in a tire rut, expecting her to run away at any moment. When she reached the track, fifty yards away, she turned south and came directly toward us, the small white blaze on her broad forehead bobbing up and down. It was the same hyena who had taken the water kettle.

  Without hesitating once, she steadily closed the distance between us, finally stopping just five yards away. We were exactly at her eye level. Her dark eyes were moist, perhaps because of the unfriendly sun. The sides of her face were battle-scarred, and a cape of fine blonde hair lay over her shoulders. Her long slender forelegs were boldly striped black and grey, ending with large, round feet. Her square jaws, capable of crushing or carrying away a fifty-pound gemsbok leg, were slightly parted.

  Slowly putting one padded foot before the other, she reached her nose toward me, taking gentle wisps of my scent, her long whiskers twitching. Finally her face was no more than eighteen inches from mine. We stared into each other’s eyes.

  Courses in animal behavior teach that carnivores communicate fear and aggression through the postures of their ears, eyes, and mouth. Star had no expression on her face, and that in itself conveyed the strongest message of all. We had seen peaceful interactions between different species in the desert on many occasions: a ground squirrel smelling the nose of a mongoose; cape foxes actually denning in the same complex of burrows with a colony of meerkats; four tiny bateared foxes playfully chasing a small herd of hartebeest. And now, Star was communicating, through her curiosity and lack of fear, an acceptance of us into her natural world.

  She stepped still closer, lifting her nose slightly and sniffing the edge of my hair. Then she sidestepped rather clumsily over her front feet and smelled Mark’s beard. After that, she turned and walked on at the same even pace toward West Dune.

  Star was enterprising and spunky, always ready to rally. Now and then, padding along the riverbed, she would dance a curious jig, leaping off her hind legs, tossing her head, and turning a half circle in the air. It was Star, mostly, who taught us the secrets of brown hyena society, and eventually some secrets about ourselves.

  She and several of the other hyenas allowed us to follow them in the truck, as we had done with the jackals. But four or five hours, at the most, was as long as we could keep her in sight. As soon as she left the riverbed, tall grass and thick bush would close over her. Since we could never keep up with the hyenas all night, we still had no idea where they slept in the daytime. In the evenings we often searched the dark riverbed for hours before finding one to follow. Our entire study of brown hyenas was restricted to chance meetings with them on a narrow ribbon of riverbed grassland no more than 1000 yards across.

  One night in January, a large pair of eyes was reflected in the spotlight, and trailing behind them was a long line of smaller eyes, all bouncing up and down. At first glance it looked like a female carnivore leading her cubs
through the grass. But it was Star and, trotting single file behind her, five young jackals, including Hansel and Gretel, all apparently playing follow-the-leader. When Star stopped, they stopped; when she zigzagged, they zigzagged. From time to time she would wheel around, as if annoyed by her shadows and hoping to shake them off. When she reached Eagle Island, on the edge of the open riverbed, and lay down for a rest in the grass, the young jackals arranged themselves in a circle around her. Because brown hyenas and jackals are keen competitors, they always check on each other when meeting and often discover that the other has food. These inexperienced youngsters were apparently hoping Star would lead them to an easy meal.

  A few minutes later, Hansel walked up to Star and put his small black nose up to her large muzzle, in what looked like a warm greeting between friends. In fact, he may have been assessing whether or not she had recently fed. Apparently Hansel found nothing interesting on Star’s chops because he trotted away, as did the other jackals, each in a separate direction.

  After resting for twenty minutes at Eagle Island, Star began to follow a zag-stitch course along the moonlit riverbed, walking at about three miles per hour. Now and then she would stop to lap up a few termites or leap into the air for a flying grasshopper. Suddenly she pivoted to the west and raised her nose high, analyzing the odors on the night air. Then she sprang forward and loped through the taller grasses of West Prairie, dodging around bushes and termite mounds and pausing only to retest the breeze. The scent led her for over two miles to the edge of the dune woodlands, where she stopped abruptly, peering into a dense thicket.

  Two feeding lionesses and their cubs—low, dark forms in the grass—lay around the remains of a gemsbok, its belly tom open and flanks smeared red. The night air was heavy with the pungent odor of the gemsbok’s rumen, which was probably how Star had smelled it two miles away. She circled widely around the area, then stood downwind. The kill was very fresh, not more than half an hour old, and the lions would not leave it tonight. She walked away north into the trees. For a scavenger, patience is the key to the pantry.