Monkey photos

I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling wretched, and thought I might not be able to make it out in the forest today. But I took some ibuprofin and powered through. The muchachas in the kitchen gave me tons and tons of fruit for breakfast and to take out into the forest. That made me happy even though I still didn’t feel too swell.

The monkeys were super spread out today. I found a female with an older juvenile, a female with a younger juvenile, and two males down pretty low on the camino where there is a Matapalo tree (ficus, or figs). I heard howling across the open field on the A trail, so I ended up going there, and that’s where all the action was. I followed a female with an Infant-2 all day and got some fairly decent feeding data. In the early afternoon, she took off—her baby riding on her back—and ate a ton of Chilamate figs (its another ficus species). I guess that was what she was hungry for. Then she slept for 3 long hours while I swatted mosquitoes and tried to find a good rock to sit on. Towards the end of the day she started moving again, and other monkeys materialized from their hidden sleeping places. I even saw good old Wrinkle Belly, so that made me happy.

I know several of you have requested photos of the monkeys, so I’ve included some here. Its actually pretty hard to get decent photos of howler monkeys—usually you are aiming the camera into the light, and the monkey turns out looking like a formless black blob. I did my best to get a few shots. The first is a female who is foraging and the second two are of a male foraging.