Initial Impressions: Fieldwork

Yep, I live and work in the jungle. The insects are huge, there’s bamboo and creeping vines all over, and I spend my time in the forest listening for monkeys. Not their calls but rather the sound they make when they jump from tree to tree high up in the canopy. It is this sound that we follow when we are searching for the monkeys, or when we can no longer see them.
The first few trips to the field were mostly for orientation purposes in the forest. There is a network of flagged and mapped animal trails in the home ranges of our four groups of monkeys. These trails help provide a guide of where to walk when we are searching, but most of the following is done off-trail (unless we are really lucky and the monkeys are right on top of the trail).
Being in the forest is serene at times but stressful at others. Our study site is lower in elevation than the station, so it tends to be hotter. Also, the weather at Ban Ling may not be the weather in the forest- we have walked in to find evidence of heavy, recent rain when there was none up the hill where we live. Walking through bamboo is surreal and reminds me that I am in Asia, but then there are the bugs . . . At times the cicadas are so noisy that we cannot follow the monkeys by sound alone. There are leeches. They are small but plentiful and will attempt to scale your body and foil your leech socks. If they do latch on and you don’t notice, when they drop off you bleed for ages. But most of the time you can get them before they get you. My favorite tactic is to flick them off of my body and send them flying though the air, but you can also roll them up and flick them, cut them in half with a knife, or snap them in half with your fingers. We kill any we have left on us once we are at Baan Ling, otherwise they would breed there and become even more of an issue.
Getting to work is awesome. We motorbike. As of yet I can’t drive myself (standard transmission and kickstart are the obstacles, but I have a good handle on the kickstart and up to second gear so far), but it is great to ride up and down the hills before the forest work starts and to cool down after it ends. Over the next few weeks my motorbike skills will increase to include hills, riding with a full pack, and driving a passenger with and without a pack. One word: weeeeeeeeee!
Everyone wants to know if the monkeys are cute and the answer is yes, especially the young ones. The other day we were watching two juveniles with an older male and they really are a pleasure to watch. You get a big crick in your neck if you sit too close to the tree they are in, but we are already improving our skills at choosing a location from which to watch. This becomes trickier with the bamboo and one must take into consideration how much the monkeys want to hide. These monkeys have been habituated to people over the past several years, so in general they don’t run from us when we approach. However, the history of poaching in the area has necessitated that the langurs know how to sneak away/hide from people, so they can move very quietly through the trees when they want to. They also nap a bunch during the day, so it is hard to find them when they are resting.