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By Kakae Saiteu, Guide - Greystoke Mahale.
From January all through to April is a time when chimpanzees’ foods, mostly fruits, are quite scarce. At this time of the year they tend not to vocalize, unlike from June through to December when food is in abundance. This sort of behaviour ensures that individuals, and their close relatives, have enough food before attracting the attention of other distantly related individuals. At this time of the year chimpanzees tend to live and walk in smaller groups of family members or few friends.
Vocalizing normally is a sign for alerting and summoning individuals. It is considered a lucky day, at this time of the year, to hear them vocalizing - there could be a female in estrus accompanied by several males; or several families or friends may have coincidently met and got excited. Since vocalization (normally an easy way for locating chimpanzees) is not reliable at this time of year, trackers and guides more than ever use animal’s signs such as tracks, feces and fruit peels or freshly eaten fruits to locate the chimpanzees.
To increase the chances of picking up some of these signs involves visiting sites, named ‘gardens’, where there are plants in fruit or whose leaves are eaten as food by chimpanzees. At these sites there is a chance of finding individuals grooming, if it is late morning, and others relishing on the fruits and leaves available such as the fruits 
of the Cordia plant, the wild grape
and so forth, which are less favoured from June through to December when fruits are in abundance.
Picture by Giselle Lucches.
Acadia, a sub-adult female, on a tree’s branch at one of the “Garden sites” feeding on mature wild grape fruits, while a few other individuals are grooming on the ground nearby.
By Lazaro George, Guide - Greystoke Mahale
The M-community’s home range in Mahale is extremely rich in vegetation, which allows the chimpanzees to be in good health throughout the year. Their home range is about 167 square km and in this area there are more than five hundred and fifty flora and fauna species of which three hundred and twenty of them are used by the chimpanzees as food; this includes leaves, fruits, flowers, bucks, saps or roots. One hundred and twenty six of these species are also used as medicine by the chimpanzees.
On the 14th January 09 I took six clients for chimpanzee viewing. We had very good time with twenty two chimpanzees. One of them was Rubicon who came across us and sat about 12 meters away from where we were. She was looking around, without us knowing what she was looking at. Three minutes later she went into the bush and she came back on the path with a branch of Aspilia in her hand. She sat down and started to pick off the Aspilia’s leaves and put them in her mouth without chewing. She repeated that three times, folding the leaves with her tongue and swallowing them. She did that for almost ten minutes and then got up and followed the other chimpanzees. Aspilia leaves are thought to be one of the medicinal plants taken by chimpanzees, used to combat worms in the stomach.
By Vianney J. Kabwine, Guide - Greystoke Mahale
On the 14th of February with 4 guests, we left camp at around 8:30am. We took a boat up to Sinsiba bay which is few hundred meters north of Greystoke camp and then hiked into the forest a little way. We encountered a group of 4 female chimpanzees feeding on Cordia millenii fruits.
We spent 10 minutes with the first group then our Tracker led us to another group of 4 females with babies that were on the other side of the tree. While the mothers, Canato and Abi were resting on a day resting nest, their babies, Agano (Abi’s baby, who is 4 years old) and Canato`s as yet un-named baby (9 months) were busy playing and jumping from one branch to another. They were playing and hanging between branches, whilst holding hands and legs together. At one point, Agano tried to bite Canato`s baby so that she would fall from the branch that she was holding on. Then they all went where their
mothers were resting and joined them on the nest. They played with their mothers for some time, before leaving them to play together as before.
After playing for a while, they went back to their mothers and climbed on their backs. The mothers then joined the first group of females and started walking towards Sinsiba camp. At this point they all went into a swamp area where we were unable to follow. This kind of playing normally occurs at a time when the mothers are resting. During this kind of playing, the babies usually practice what they have observed adults doing, like fishing for black ants, and hanging from branch to branch. In the future this will help them to know which branch to hold on to at what time, or where to swing to when they are moving from one tree to another.
By Hassani Rashid, Tracker - Greystoke MahaleRelationships between adult female chimpanzees can be very strong. Two adult females - Gwekulo and Pinky, were very close friends for many years until Pinky’s death. They spent much time grooming together, walking as one family in times of food scarcity and spent nights in trees close to each other. When Pinky died--- Gwekulo an old barren female adopted Pinky’s baby, named Puffy, when she was still very young. Puffy grew up healthy and joyful, being taught and learning a lot with Gwekulo just as other young ones grow up with their biological mothers. She always considered Gwekulo as her mother and continued the mother – daughter relationship which once existed between her and her biological mother. To this day Gwekulo and Puffy are still seen together, living as mother and daughter.
Picture by Will Burrard Lucas
of the Cordia plant, the wild grape
