Golden Monkeys

Monday, August 26th

This morning we trekked for Golden Monkeys, an endemic species of which 2000 remain across Rwanda, Uganda and Congo. Golden Monkeys prefer a bamboo forest habitat. That is where we found them  after about an hour’s walk, half in farm fields and half in forest. As with gorillas, you are split into groups and each group is assigned a family. You can stay with the monkeys for an hour after you first encounter them.

Yesterday several groups found their monkeys in the harvested potato fields near the park boundary. The farmers leave some potatoes behind after the harvest, so that the monkeys have another source of food and do not bother the fields that have yet to be harvested. We were thankful that our assigned family was up in the forest, which seemed a more appropriate setting for them.

Our family, Abaqua (“feed us”) is one of the largest. During the twice yearly mating seasons the family may include 200 monkeys. The rest of the year, the adult males go to other areas and the females and young retain the home territory. We saw about 40 monkeys today. They were all around us, and were very serious about eating continually. Some were above our heads in the bamboo, others were on the ground carefully folding nettle leaves so they could eat them without being stung by the nettles.  Some of our colleagues were less lucky with the nettles! 

This afternoon we did some birding around the lodge, then travelled to a pair of lakes near the Ugandan border. There we walked along the shoreline looking for birds. While we didn’t see any new species at the lakes, it was a lovely way to spend the afternoon and early evening. Driving back after dark was a real adventure, as there are pedestrians everywhere and not a lot of light. 

Pictured: Golden monkeys, Stuhlmann’s Sunbird