Simon at Sepilok

This afternoon went early to feeding platform to watch the early arrivals and was rewarded to see Mr.G and Guramboi play fighting for 10 minutes solid.
Then there was a rustle in the branches high behind me and Mimi with her baby son Roni started to descend down the trunk, across the viewing platform within a few feet of me and some other early arrivals and over to the feeding platform.

I think you see a lot more of the orangutans natural behaviour by coming early and watching them play. Once the food is out on the platform all the other activities apart from munching and stealing cease for a good while, as you'd probably expect!

This afternoon a return to the traps saw us with two more catches. Just one was new (a common shrew) and was duly recorded.

After that i helped Nick some more with the nursery play area which is nearing completion. Two hammocks are now up (probably will be used by the volunteers as well as the orangutans!) and a length of old rope ladder is being used for a climbing area and swings. Here is Gangi being an early test pilot...

More to do tomorrow but big grins starting to appear on Nick and my faces as we can see the finished product starting to emerge. A nice little legacy for Sepilok to remember us by... :-)

During the early part of the evening we went on a short night walk. This started by main reception where at about 6.30pm every night a flying squirrel emerges from it's nest in the trunk and climbs up to near the top. Then it jumps and drifts off like a hang glider over to another tree maybe 100m away. Amazing sight and worth the long wait.
Then we continued onto the boardwalk with torches looking for signs of life. Our sightings included large spiders, lots of fireflys, two vipers, a furry caterpillar, several tree frogs and at the end of the walk a small leopard cat. It never ceases to amaze me the huge variety of life that lives in the rainforest.

And that was pretty much that for the night. Saving our energies for the farewell parties on the 30th here and then the 1st April back at Rasa Ria... ;-)