The first step to following Phayre’s langurs is finding them. This can be relatively easy or relatively difficult based on a variety of factors. For example, we know the “home range” of our groups of langurs, but that area can be rather large. We start by walking trails in that group’s “home range,” and most of our attention is in the canopy. Most likely, we hear the monkeys before we see them. These monkeys travel through the canopy and rarely come to ground level, so we hear crashes in branches as the monkeys move from tree to tree. When we can match this sound with movement in the canopy, we head in that direction and try to positively identify our langurs. There are other species of primates in the forest, including Assamese macaques (the study species of Team Macaque) and white-handed gibbons (which “sing” in the early morning) so we are not guaranteed to find “our” monkeys. There are also “Giant Squirrels”- which is the common name, not just a classifier for their size (though they are huge), but they tend to make less noise as they move from tree to tree.
Besides other mammals, there are other confounding factors to following these monkeys. Some groups are better habituated than others, i.e. they are more used to people. These groups don’t care too much when we are around and will even come to the ground to eat bamboo/drink water/eat soil when we are in the area. This is really exciting for us new field assistants, who have scores of monkeys to learn by sight based on some distinguishing characteristics that are easier to see when the monkeys are closer and less skittish. For the shier groups though, the monkeys are more liable to lose us in the forest by moving more quietly, higher in the canopy, or not moving at all for some time (though all the monkeys nap at certain times of the day). It is especially difficult if not impossible to follow a single monkey, as we have learned in the last week. They move into the canopy to eat or sunbathe and then they are just gone . . .
Rain is another big issue. We were pretty lucky the first week we were in the forest and it only rained lightly for a few minutes, but August/September is the second peak of the monsoon season and we have been reminded of that in the past few days. In the rain, everything turns the same gray as the monkey’s fur, and you have to search for them based on shape- hoping that what you are seeing is a tail not a hanging vine, or a body not a termite mound (which apparently grow on trees in Thailand). Sometimes the monkeys still move in the rain, and sometimes they sit still.
But when we do find them, and follow them, it really can be great. One day last week the group came down from the canopy and was on all sides of me- infants, juveniles, adults- all munching down on bamboo like ice cream cones. The young ones play in the afternoon while the adults sleep- infants pulling each other’s tails and generally rough housing, hopping from branch to branch.
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