18th November 2007

It was a truly spectacular dawn – red and orange and pink, splashed across the sky behind the jet black Yatta. The river was still high when we woke up, but not quite as high as last night. From the patterns on the banks, you can see how high the water came. It even opened up a new channel behind the Fig Tree on the opposite bank from us, and it came right into the Tana River Poplars on our side. The big white sandbank is still there, though somewhat reduced in size. That means it’s not the biggest flood we have seen – that was during El Nino when the entire sandbank was covered, and the river flooded right into our ‘old campsite’, around the base of the massive acacia elatior trees.

This morning, the African Golden Weavers are trying to salvage what they can of their remaining nests on the battered reed islands. The reeds are resilient plants: despite being almost flattened in the raging waters last night, they are slowly righting themselves again. Before long, they will look as though nothing ever happened to bother them, apart from having lost a few of their resident weaver nests.

There’s been no more rain today. Nevertheless, it’s a bit like the lunatics have taken over the asylum here, the way the grass in our balcony flowerbeds is spreading out over our floor, and up our walls, as if it owns the place. Great long strands of it are hanging out over the balcony too, looking for new purchase elsewhere.

The Swifts and the Swallows too think the house is here purely for their benefit, and they’re trying to move in everywhere. Each time I walk into the kitchen, I seem to find a Swallow sitting on the ceiling fan, as if it is planning to build a nest there. (Not a great idea, I would have thought).

The small crocodile we first saw emerge from the Tana River Poplars on 12th November, does seem to be nesting after all. She is always on the riverbank in the same place, which is characteristic of a crocodile mother who, once she has laid and buried her eggs in the sand near the river’s edge, will stay there guarding the nest until the little ones hatch. When the babies are ready to come out of the nest, they start squeaking, and the mother will come and dig them out.

A larger male crocodile was making advances towards her today. He came up close to her in the water, and started to do his “mating dance”: first of all vibrating his whole body so little fountains of water shoot up in the air around him, and then snapping the water and lifting his head and his tail high out the water. The female did not seem overly impressed.

We went down to have a look later on and we found the spot where we think the crocodile nest is, up on the flat sand, near the Peaceful Place. We could see the mother crocodile’s tracks in the sand, and where she had been lying, presumably on top of where she dug her eggs in. She slid into the water as we approached, and then watched us from the water’s edge. It’ll be interesting to see how long the eggs take to hatch – some records say three months, which sounds like an awfully long time to me. I need to read up about that. Either way, the mother crocodile will be there, watching over her nest, come rain or shine, for as long as it takes…

The transformation of the bushland truly is underway. What my father calls "sea grass" and Ian calls "cabbage" is sprouting everywhere – including in the middle of the building materials (the Film Foundation is constructing new staff houses). The broad leaves are incredible in their greenness, especially contrasted with the still overwhelmingly grey bushland. This is the plant which grows from the spidery “octopus bulbs” – we’ve planted some in the balcony flowerbeds, but they only seem to be yielding tiny leaves, compared with the “wild ones”. I called them lilies to begin with, because they grow from these bulbs, but I don’t really know what kind of plant they are. Whatever they are, they are growing literally everywhere. Nothing seems to be eating them, not even the voracious Dik-Diks, as there are no nibble-marks on any of the leaves I've seen.

More Bauhinia bushes are flowering, but not all of them. It's not like some years when you look out across the bushland and it looks like snow has fallen, with all the white flowers. It’s strange but we see one flowering bush next to another one which is still grey and almost lifeless in appearance. Now why would that be? The white lilies are finished already – how quickly they blossomed and then died – like so many other plants in this dry country, they are completing their reproductive cycles swiftly before the dry times set in again.

I found the diminutive Pearl Spotted Owlette in the acacia tortilis on the ‘Little Serengeti’. I only found the Owlette because I heard the chirping alarm call of another LBJ (could be a Pale Flycatcher, I think?). The Cuckoos are also still around, still vocal as ever. The Peaceful Place, with an even greener carpet today, was beautiful as ever. The Spur-winged Plovers were there, foraging for insects in the grass. The Kingfisher was there too, always striking with its flashes of iridescent blue and flame-red beak. The European Rollers have arrived too, swooping around and feasting on rain-hatched insects. And we saw a Grey Duiker rushing across the road in front of us – a new antelope for our list!

And then tragedy: The Spur-winged Plover chicks did not make it through the night. We went back to see how the little ones had fared in the floods, and what we found was distressing: the river had covered the entire area where they had been living, and they were gone. Not even the parents were anywhere in sight. I felt so sad, for it was only the day before yesterday that we been there with them, marvelling at how strong and confident the little fellows had become – but nothing could save them from the water, which swallowed up everything which could not fly or run from its grasp in the dead of night. They would have been 18 days old today, and now they are gone…

[PHOTOS COMING SOON]