Christmas in Greystoke

Two very happy families shared Christmas with us here in Greystoke this year. Luckily our guests had all behaved during the year and Santa managed to navigate his sleigh to our remote shores. He seemed to enjoy his glass of Amarula left out and reindeer stocked up on carrots for the onward flight.
Our families had a wonderful time with excellent chimping, relaxing lake cruises and leisurely swims in the deep open water.
 Even Big Bird enjoyed the festivities and was thankful our turkey arrived on time. Christmas in Mahale was truly magical!

Monkey hunting

Guests have been enjoying fairly relaxed forest walks on the lower slopes nearby to encounter our hairy cousins lately but as mango stocks in the camp trees are depleted, alternative food sources are being exploited.
With a lack of ripe mangos the red colobus monkeys have become very nervous as hunting parties of male chimps have been seen actively pursuing them. This is a very raucous and chaotic spectacle as the chimps use noise, decoys and general confusion to single out the young colobus they prefer. Captors get to keep the preys head but the rest goes to Primus who then distributes the scraps amongst those others who he needs to keep on side with.
 Bonobos arm seems to be nearly fully healed and Darwin remains thoughtful and has some great new poses for the cameras.

                                                           Primus with a red colobus

                                                               Darwin posing again

                                                                       Gwekulo

Pack for a purpose

A Canadian guest recently arrived with a bag full of medicines for the local village clinic at Katumbi just outside Mahale to the north.
 Pack for a Purpose is an organisation whose mission is to assist travellers who would like to positively impact communities in the countries they are visiting.  http://www.packforapurpose.org/docs/countries/tanzania/greystoke-mahale.shtml

 Katumbi clinic serves approx 3000 local residents and is assisted by the Nomad Trust.
Kerrie set off in a boat to deliver the much appreciated new supplies. Nurse Elizabeth was extremely grateful for the contribution. The impact these contributions makes, hit home strongly as a funeral was being held that day for a young lady and her child who both died while giving birth.
 Being extremely remote here in the west of Tanzania, these communities can be somewhat forgotten when it comes to receiving outside help.
 

Lounging Luvlees

Mahales 3 resident warthogs made themselves quite comfortable in the dining area yesterday much to the guests delight! Big Bird was reasonably put out by the fuss made over them and quickly set off making sweeping and soaring flights along the beach demonstrating the best we had taught her so far. It wasn't enough really.

 

Pelican brief

Often upstaging the chimps "Big Bird" continues to be loved by all who visit here. It's not everyday you get to pat a tame pelican! She is extremely tolerant, sweet and possibly a boy, nobody can really say just yet.
 "Flight training" commences before breakfast most mornings if wind conditions allow. Even Big Bird knows that taking off with a back wind is foolhardy.
 Flights over the water are common now and even a loop around the back of the mess was witnessed. Landings are at best shaky and we often have to look away as she underestimates ground speed and stopping distances. All too cute though.
Next she really needs to improve her fishing techniques.

Where mangos, chimps go

Trees laden with mangos prove irresistible to our hairy neighbours at this time of year and we are being visited regularly in camp by M-group members. Sometimes it's Orion who is sneaking around with Cynthia at the moment on some kind of extended date and avoiding the higher ranked males for fear of a beating having singled out one of their prime females. Other times Alofu and his loyal followers have strolled through the back of the camp to feast and swing through the mango tree briefly before Primus turns up throwing his weight and branches about and spoiling the peace much to our visitors delight. On days between camp visits guests are still required to hike well into the park at times for even more rewarding chimp encounters.

Mango snack

New Blood

The start of this month has been really interesting with the guides getting back one morning to say that the Alpha male (Primus) had been beaten up really badly. Unfortunately they couldn't say if he was removed from his position. A few days later after he had recovered Primus had resumed his position.

The young bloods continued their challenges to the top ranking males and the guests then saw some amazing behavior going on while up in the mountains.

Michio has been the main young blood that has been challenging Alufu with Orion and Christmas. Michio has been challenging Alufu a lot by charging around. Alufu, Alina, Bonobo (with the broken arm) Kulunde and Fanana all sat in a tight group observing Michio's going-ons. Eventually Fanana had enough and asked Alufu to sort out this naughty boy and so all 4 males suddenly got up and charged Michio and Alufu caught him and gave him a good hiding for 5 minutes after which Michio ran off.

Continuing on, the guides found Darwin who is number 3 in the ranking and a gentle male. He has been hanging out with Christmas who is not well at the moment and has flu like symptoms and a cough.

Now Darwin was seen after being beaten up badly but he has since healed and recovered well. When we first saw him he was really in a bad way with his finger, ear and face bitten and his foot bitten badly.  Unfortunately we aren't too sure who was responsible for this but I have a feeling that it was Michio after the way he has been acting as it looks like he is trying to rise to a higher rank than what he actually is.

So, stay tuned for more exciting stories of the M community.

This will be my last blog for this season.  We would like to welcome Kerrie and Jeff to the Greystoke team and they will continue the stories for all of you.

Sacha