Monkeys!!!

Today, probably due to the fact that we forgot our camera, we saw many exciting forest creatures! First, a troop (barrel!) of white-faced capuchin monkeys! They made their way past us next to the trail, and one of the females was carrying a baby on its back. It was adorable, and made me wonder why we call it "piggy-back" instead of "monkey-back." Doesn't a monkey-back ride sound just as good? It was exciting that we saw the troop, because they are a fairly rare sighting at Cloudbridge. Apparently there used to be a lot more monkeys, but then 4 years ago a freak wind event came through, that blew many roofs off houses down in town and blew down lots of flowers and fruit that the monkeys normally eat. So they all moved out, and only recently have started being seen around the reserve again. Now that we've seen the capuchins we're just hoping to see spider monkeys, which are the other kind that may be around here.

Up the trail a ways from the monkeys, we encountered a less welcome animal, the Black-speckled Palm Pitviper. This guy was a beautiful bright green, though we quickly identified it as poisonous due to its large triangular head. He was sunning himself on the path, and wasn't in any hurry to leave, so we scooched around him and continued. Despite my fear of seeing a snake (especially now that I've read up on them and learned that they mostly live in the trees) it was neat to see this one because apparently they are also fairly rare. In fact, the blog that I linked to above was written about a sighting from the hill just across the valley from us! Funny what google turns up sometimes.

In other exciting animal news, we found this super cool bug outside of our house last week:

Looks like he's covered in lichen, but we're pretty positive that that is all him... The day after discovering him, we found a giant spider in our bathtub. We captured the spider and took him as a gift to our good friend Holly (she was thrilled), but upon closer inspection found the legs and other dismembered parts of our lichen friend hidden behind our shampoo. Looks like he made a tasty treat for the spider.

Finally, a picture of a fiddlehead that we've been watching turn into a fern as we hike past every morning:

Also, here's a permalink to an album that Matt posted on facebook the other day, in case you didn't notice it there. This link should work whether or not you have an account.