Simon at Sepilok

Pictured left is the "trees and ropes" play area that we take the younsters to every day. Here they can practise essential survival skills, such as swinging, climbing and p*ssing on humans from the tops of trees (just ask Vicky about that one...) :-)

Highlight of the day today was seeing Gangi (one of the youngsters who is recently out of quarantine) climbing the trees in the play area and then making not just one but three separate nests!
This must be a skill that she learned from her mother before being orphaned. Seeing one nest being built by a youngster here is quite rare. So to see three was amazing.

To put it into perspective, a researcher recently spent a whole week here trying to observe nest building by the orangutans from the Indoor Nursery and despite the rangers best efforts to take the OUs out near the end of the day she left without seeing any!

Sylvia (the manager here at Sepilok) was quite excited by the news and she is encouraging us to try to capture it on video if we see it happening again. Fingers crossed...

Apart from that, nothing out of the ordinary really happened. We are settling into a good work routine and are having plenty of contact with the young OUs.

Bed very early tonight to catch up on some sleep. Working outdoors in these hot and humid conditions certainly saps your energy much faster than sitting on your bum all day in front of a PC in an air-conditioned office!