Food poisoning

Violently ill all last night...
...just woke up at noon. Everyone's gone to the forest. Can't remember falling asleep.

Feeling better, though.

Ugh.

This is AMAZING...

...and has nothing whatsoever to do with monkeys, Morocco, or me, but I love it and wanted to share:

One more

You only find trees like this in Ain Kalla

 

I'm beginning to worry that picture after picture of the same subject matter might be getting boring to you guys.  Is there anything that you'd like to see that I'm missing?  Anything you'd like to know more about?  Let me know!

As promised...

Two females in the Green group have had newborns in the past week.  They give birth during the night, so it's a wonderful surprise to rejoin the group in the morning and realize a new member has been added while you were away.  We're expecting at least 3 more in the coming weeks.

Anna, the dominant female, with her newborn

The males 'steal' the newborns sometimes and run around like crazy using them to socialize with the other males.  This is Lewis with Anna's infant.

Oz (dominant male) with Anna's infant

The two females who have given birth so far are Rebecca and Anna.  While we are pretty positive that Anna has raised young successfully before, we are almost certain that this is Rebecca's first infant.  While I realize it's not proper scientific practice to anthropomorphisize these individuals, I can't help but think that she's looked pretty freaked out this week.

I realize that after looking at photos of baby monkeys, grown monkeys might not seem so interesting, but I thought I'd post these anyway:

Larssen

Mac and Simon

Perspective:

September October November December January February March April May June July Au(stin)

What?  How?

LIFE!

One of the females in the new Scarlet group had a baby. 

It spends the day tenaciously clinging to her stomach.  She's more than a little paranoid now, and she and the rest of the group are extremely protective (I got hassled by them for accidentally walking in her general direction the other day) so getting close for a picture was nigh impossible.  These were taken with my binoculars, so I apologize for the quality.

This development can only mean one thing:  Green group babies on the way!  We're so excited -- I'm half tempted to drive up to the forest today and tomorrow just to check up on them.

Spent the day with the Greens yesterday for the first time in over a week.  It was wonderful to be around monkeys that really don't care that I'm there. 

Other than that, no new developments.  My only plan for today is to make an apple pie.  

Expect a ridiculous number of newborn monkey photos in the coming months (you have been warned).

Searching

This is a turned stone:

When feeding, the monkeys move slowly along the forest floor, turning rocks over as they go and looking for insects.  While I don't think I've ever successfully found a group using only these stones as a guide, by turning the rock back over and observing the discoloration of the grass underneath, you can make a rough estimate of how recently they visited the site.  You can also turn another rock over nearby and compare the two exposed patches of earth.  Rain can help enormously by depositing dirt against the bottom edge of rocks which have been turned for a while. 

A macaque skull Chris found the other day

75% of the time, I probably find the group because one or more monkeys makes a noise.  Maybe someone gets in a fight, or a male shakes a tree, or (as is often a case with this new group) a Berber dog has chased the group into the trees and everyone is screaming bloody murder.  My strategy for finding the group therefore consists of a few minutes of walking, stumbling over broken branches and rocks as I scan the horizon and the treetops, followed by 30 seconds of me being as silent and as vigilant as humanly possible.  This reliance on sound is also the reason we cannot search with any sort of rain protection on our heads, no matter what the weather is.  Hoods make too much noise against your ears, and hats muffle the sounds too much.  Last Thursday Chris and I searched for 7 hours before calling it a day.  Some days we can search for as long as 10 hours.  Sunday we got lucky and found them in 3. 

The Berbers in the area are normally happy to help us out when we're looking for the group, although many times it seems they're so eager to help they just point us in a random direction.  I don't know any Berber, so if I'm lucky enough to encounter a shepherd who speaks Arabic, I can ask him how long ago he saw them, how many there were, how far it is, etc..., otherwise we try to communicate with hand signals.

A small tunnel in the rocks formed by a seasonal stream

The weather has been wonderful lately.  Actually warm enough to not wear a jacket in the forest.  It's heavenly. 

The haddaf