The South Group Shall Rise Again

On Sunday I didn’t go out to the forest, but I’m not sure if one day of rest was not enough or whether it was too much. I could barely even enjoy the day because I was overcome with Forest Anxiety. I couldn’t stop dreading the thorns and vines and rocks and bugs and how much my neck always hurts from looking up at the monkeys. Plus, late on the day Saturday, there had been some confusion with the South troop and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find them again. I am beginning to feel seriously burned out—like that last week of peak mileage while training for a marathon.

Rob could see how much I was struggling with this, so he offered to come to the forest with me this morning for a little while. At first I thought it was just one of those things—you know, when people offer to do something to be nice but they know you aren’t really going to take them up on it. But he really did come out to the forest with me. He rolled out of bed at 4:45am and didn’t complain a bit as we got our stuff together and broke into the kitchen again--where is this night guard??

My monkey sense started tingling around a path I call “Laucaena Way,” which is in the border zone between the North and South groups. Sure enough, monkeys were there, but my monkey radar told me it was the North group. As much as I love observing Wrinkle Belly et al, I really needed to find the South group and get some data on them this month. Rob and I wandered around all their usual places and did not find them. Just as I was panicking, we heard what appeared to be an intergroup encounter near where we’d initially seen the monkeys. It turned out that the North and South groups were howling back and forth to each other. I was overjoyed when in the midst of all this commotion, I saw Uno—the “king” of the South group. (Note: He may only be the “king” per se, in my mind).

Rob stayed a while and took a lot of pictures of the monkeys with his good camera. I’ll post the best ones:







Near as I can tell this photo is of Nathan Jr., who was born shortly after I got here.



And here’s how “Uno” got his name…

Here are Rob and me in the forest




It was comforting to see that all the monkeys were back in their usual places after their mad dashing around for specific food resources. But at the end of the day on my way out of the forest, I saw Wrinkle Belly and some others headed down the corridor again. I guess they wanted to see if that Chaperno tree had any more flowers.

Thanks for reading, until later then!