Another lucky day…

No…I haven’t seen another puma, but today we were really lucky because we could observe a group of white-fronted capuchin monkeys (Cebus albifrons) next to the station’s house.

First Genio, a guy who sometimes helps out at the station, saw one and called me and our intern to see it. Immediately the monkey noticed us and started shaking the tree branch where it sat on, a typical threatening gesture. And after maybe 2-3 minutes it disappeared somewhere in the canopy.

About 15 minutes later I heard some branches cracking outside again and when I went out there were four monkeys in a Pourouma-tree, feeding on the fruits. Of course, they noticed us, as well. And they also shaked the branches every once in a while, but they still kept feeding. One capuchin was really curious and came down to a tree five meters in front of us, did some threatening gestures and then it joined the others again. After feeding on the Pourouma the capuchins moved on to some other trees next to one of our outhouses. And there we (or they?) got really close. Two of them observed us from a branch 3 meters away. While looking at us, they ripped of little branches to throw them on us, then shaked the branch and now and then they started scratching their fur. It was very funny. And all the time I didn’t have my camera with me. First I expected the capuchins would leave immediately when they see us, but they didn’t…we were observing them for about an hour. In the end I told Genio to get my camera from our house and when he came back the capuchins already had left the branch right in front of us.

This blog post was written by Nicole