A boy named Mabel

Number of Ticks Removed: 31
Days Tick-free: 5

The scent of rain woke me up in the night. I looked at the clock and saw it was 3:50am, just about 30 minutes from when I needed to get up. The first drops began to tap on the roof, and within a few moments it sounded like someone was pouring buckets of water from the sky. The power went out, and without the low hum of the fan, there was nothing to do but listen to the sound of the rain and wonder if it would quit by the time I needed to leave for the forest. The past several nights, dark clouds have rolled in around sunset and there has been thunder and lightening, but no rain. Aside those few brief unexpected April showers, it has been oppressively hot and dry. The start of the rainy season is supposed to be mid-May, and as I listened to the pre-dawn storm this morning, I thought, “Well, here we are.”

Nonetheless, the rain (which amounted to only 0.9 cm) subsided by the time I left for the forest. The path I took up to the volcano was barely even muddy, and by 9am, all traces of the early morning rain had been sucked dry by the relentless sun.

I’ve spent the past several days with the North Group. Early Monday morning, I found them low on the Camino—it really did seem like they were waiting for me, because just after I arrived, they took off for the Mango Patch. My focal animal for the day was Horace, a young juvenile who has been weaned since about December or January. Much to my surprise, I discovered that Horace’s mother, Matilda, had a brand new little baby clinging to her. At least, I am pretty sure that it was Horace’s mom because Horace never left her side all week. He didn’t really seem overly interested in the baby itself, but he did seem to want to remain close to that ever-present source of comfort: Mom. At any rate, I named the baby Toby. It was really interesting to watch all the interactions surrounding the new baby. As with other newborns I have observed, all the other females in the group kept crowding around trying to touch, smell, or lick the baby. Poor Matilda could barely get any rest. Maybe I’m anthropomorphizing too much, but a few times I swear that Horace helped out his mom by insinuating himself between her and the peering, pawing females. Here’s a picture of Matilda with Toby (just a little patch of gold) on her belly:


On Tuesday, the North Group remained at the Mango Patch. There were about 4 horses up there grazing most of the day as well; when the monkeys dropped mangos, the horses would rush over to eat the scraps. It was a nice kind of relationship I suppose. The monkeys did not appear agitated at all by the horses, and the horses could not reach the mangos up high in the tree, so it was good for them that the monkeys are so clumsy and drop so many mangos. At any rate, I followed Wilma and Mabel all day. Wilma is a tough old bird, and Mabel is a little baby I noticed with her in early March. The first name that popped into my head was Mabel, so that’s what I called it. Now, whenever I name an infant, I don’t know what its sex is. At first I tried to give sort of gender-neutral names, but eventually I just started alternating between boyish names and girlish names. In the ensuing 2 months since Mabel’s birth, I have since realized that Mabel is a boy. Try as I might, I cannot change his name. So what we are left with is a boy called Mabel.

I got some fairly good pictures up in the Mango Patch. Here are Wilma and Mabel:


A female enjoying a tasty mango:


Today the monkeys left the Mango Patch and returned to more familiar territory. I followed dear old Wrinkle Belly and was actually able to get one of my best photos of him yet. He was foraging and came down so low that we were practically eye to eye. Here he is, getting ready to take a bite of these vine leaves:


Thanks to everyone for sending out healing wishes to Rob’s dad. He is doing well, so we are much relieved, but keep the good vibes coming please.

And a big congratulations to Martin, or should I call him Dr. Martin, who defended his dissertation today. Hooray for you Martin. All of the Anthro crowd is out there right now partying like there’s no tomorrow. Wish I could be there to help celebrate!

All right, this is more than enough writing for one night. Thanks for reading.