Grooming

AS I've posted earlier, there are green monkeys who wander around the institute. Sylvain and I were sitting outside working when we heard this odd noise. It didn't sound like a bird, so we went to investigate. There was a female sitting on a roof calling. She had an itch or something so at one point was scratching her leg at the same time.

Sure enough, a male showed up, and the two of them sat together on top of one of the buildings. The female groomed the male, looking for parasites and gunk on him. They moved around a bit, and then up into the trees, and then seemed to go their separate ways.

I had run for my camera as soon as we saw the female, fully expecting her to have left by the time I got back, and I was very happy to find out she still there!

Cheers

Hawksbill Babies Release

So the turtle folks dropped by last night with a bucket of baby hawksbill turtles that had hatched and were making their way to the posh Sandy Lane lobby instead of the ocean. I mentioned it in a previous post (with the crazy picture of the huge leatherback turtle), but the babies us the ambient light of the ocean to orient themselves to the water. The problem with all these fancy hotels who insist on keeping their lights on (because the customers want to see the ocean apparently) is the turtles think the hotel is the ocean. The turtle people get called in, they collect them, and the take them to another part of the beach that hasn't been over run with hotels and bright lights.

So, we walked up the beach a short way to heron bay where there are no hotels. We got some of them going, but a good portion of them hadn't woken up yet. The first bunch got off to great start, but then the rest just kept on sleeping. We tried some tricks to wake them up, but they seemed to enjoy their snooze. The turtle folks got another call so they gathered up the rest and said they'd try another time when they were a little more awake

Moral of the day: if you go to a beachside hotel that has known turtle nesting spots - tell the managers to turn off their lights at night!

Oh, and yes, I did ask if I could use flash. They said as long as the flash was coming from the direction of the ocean, it was fine.

Trumpetfish

This is a trumpetfish. They are very cool fish that look very weird. Their mouths are at the end of their snout, or whatever you call it. Cameron mentioned how it must be weird to be able to see your own mouth and what you eat while you are eating.