Howler Monkeys

Our early morning wake up call is now provided by a family of howler monkeys who have moved into the vacinity of the marina. Every morning we are woken at first light by whooping and roaring from the canopy of the jungle that surrounds the marina.

This morning Nigel and I braved the deserted roads of the old Fort Sherman, these go way off into the jungle which is now a protected wildlife reserve. Our first introduction to the wildlife was a small capybara out for his early morning stroll, he eyed us up and down and then continued merrily on his way totaly unfased by us humans. High above us in the canopy of the jungle we could hear monkeys moving above us and as we got closer they started to call out warning each other of our presence. They were quite large and I'm glad that they kept themselves up in the trees - they can move faster than I can!

We came across a family of what we thought were ring tailed limas or ones that sure looked like them. They were quite happy to play on the jungle floor as we walked past them, thye were drinking fresh water out of the drains along the road and then climbing a plam tree of kinds that had date like fruit growing under the fronds. There were loads of parrots flying around, not the bright coloured macaw type but green and a dull yellow. Nigel has taken some photos so when he gets round to loading them onto the data stick I will up load them to the blog.