Every evening at dusk the troop of monkeys came right past our “home away from home!”
This was my first encounter with the little squirrel monkeys. Three evenings in a row we made a point of getting home in time for their arrival. The first day it was quite late and hence rather dark, but still so much fun to see them. Here are some shots from that first day.
To get a sense of the size of these little guys, here is a Baltimore Oriole perching next to a Balsa flower like the one the little monkey is investigating in the picture above. These are a favorite snack of the squirrel monkeys!
Day 2 with the monkey troop – after a heavy rain. We watched for several minutes as the monkeys came through, one after the other, and took a major leap across the road, presumably heading to their nighttime sleeping spot. One little guy balked and turned around but, with many waiting in line behind him, he had to screw up his courage and finally jumped like a pro! This reminded Jackie and me of how it can feel climbing onto a high-diving board!
I think this monkey was happy none of his pals were watching his landing.
And here are some more fun portraits of these cute guys, still quite wet from the rain. The one holding its tail was actually shaking the rain off of it when I took the picture. I often saw holding onto their tail or grooming the tail of a companion. Unlike other monkeys in Costa Rica, their tails are not prehensile. Apparently they are used primarily for balancing when traveling across the high treetops.
The last day with the monkeys: These are three of my favorite pictures, maybe he was checking to see if there was anything left for him inside the balsa flower!
This monkey had snagged a nice piece of fruit and, though he/she was skeptical of my lens, it wasn’t enough to stop it from settling in to enjoy its supper. I thought at first that it looked like a mango but then remembered how small these guys are.
It was always interesting and fun to see them together in pairs. They spent lots of time grooming each other, as monkeys do.
Here are some of my other favorite portraits from our third evening with these cute little monkeys.
As it got later, the monkeys in the trees right next to our house seemed ready to settle in for the night. Note the one with his head down. He looked at me and buried his head, then looked up again and repeated this a few times. Another one settled in without worrying about us being there. As it got darker and darker, we went in and they did in fact sleep right there that night.
And that is the story of our visits with squirrel monkeys, 2023!