Today Joan, Mum and I went to Monkey world which was a unexpected visit as I would normally be busy on Sunday afternoons but this Sunday I took off so we could make the most of having Joan with us. We travelled from home so we left Portishead at around 7:30am to make sure with a break part way we could get to monkey world in time for opening.
We arrived at Monkey world at around 9:50am so 10 minutes before opening. We headed straight to Hanayas chimp group where the cheeky Thelma was out playing where as the rest of the group was very lazy mostly lying down under blankets.
After we had finished with Thelma we decided we would walk around the park in the opposite direction than what most people do and head to the Woolly Monkeys which were showing well and well maybe there will be a new baby in the next few months.
After the woolly monkeys we headed to another group of Chimps known as Bart’s Group. It must have been coming up to feed time as the chimps were very active walking around the enclosure. We were hoping to see Toprish which is one of the newest rescues that monkey world did however she doesn’t like coming outside and the house bit was closed for maintenance so unfortunately we did not see Toprish.
Then we met one of the cutest babies at the park a baby woolly monkey. We spent a little while to watch the baby woolly monkey before moving on as we wanted to see the whole park as we do not go very often.
Opposite the inside of the baby woolly monkeys are two gorgeous golden cheeked gibbons Who are normally very hard to see as the enclosure is natural with massive trees for them to swing around which is amazing. Today we were very lucky and both the male and female were sitting in view for enough time for photos before moving off in the trees.
We then noticed that the baby woolly monkey was heading outside so we decided to go back and watch the baby outside and see how independent it was from mum.
As you can see the little one was fairly independent in the sense it would venture off mums back and explore the near surroundings but wouldn’t go too far from the mum. It had a great time learning how to grip onto things and not fall off.
Once we had finished with the woolly monkey at that stage we headed to the next group of chimps which is Bryans group. The first chimp we saw in this group was Ash and Naree two of the three girls in this group. Ash and Naree was very playful with each other which was nice to see as the last time we went Naree was too scared to come outside.
We also saw the oldest female in the group Lulu. This chimp is one of the easiest to tell apart from the others as she is more grey than black as well as only having one arm and generally keeps herself to herself.
Here are some more of Naree and Ash.
Then the two boys showed up. The two boys are called Rodders and Bryan. Bryan is the new leader of the group since Sally sadly died a while ago. Rodders is one of the most cheeky of the group and I noticed that he was carrying round a dead frog on his neck.
Once we had finished with Bryans group we headed to the Nursery group of the Orangutans as that is mums favourite animal. It was also one special girls birthday in the nursery so it was only fair that we went to see them. The group consists of Silvester, Jin, Oshine, Mimi, Bulu Mata and Rieke.
After we spent time with the nursery group of orangutans we headed to the bottom of the park to the capuchins. There are three groups of capuchins down the bottom of the park and are normally quite interesting to photograph as they are always on the move.
The next primate we got to was the stump tailed macaques which to be honest are not the prettiest at the park but there is one called Toto which is the prettiest of the group and is the one normally that hides from the camera.
Then we headed to the siamang gibbons which again we do not normally see as the enclosure is left to become more natural for the monkeys but today they were showing well going from one tree to the other. The only sad thing with the gibbon enclosure was that there was a dead kingfisher that had flown into the window.
We then headed back to the other group of orangutans where Tuan was showing well with his ice lolly that the keepers had given him for enrichment.
We then headed back to the woolly monkeys to see the baby woolly monkey again. Most of the time the baby was next to the mum but at times it would get off the mum and go to play with the pile of logs.
We then headed back to Hanayas group of chimps to see what had changed since first thing in the morning. However, not much had changed.
We then headed to see the Benny, Nia and their baby Biff and George and Mica. They all were showing in their outside enclosure and like normal Mica was protecting George.
We then went back to Hanaya’s group of chimps as they were very active at this stage.
