The morning started with flurries. Both of the snow and chimpanzee varieties. While snow lightly wafted through the cold morning air outside, Jody engaged Burrito in a wrestling match:
Don’t worry, part of chimpanzee play is “play biting” so even though Jo’s arm is in Burrito’s mouth, he’s not hurting her, it’s all in good fun (if you’re a chimpanzee):
I spend a lot of my time when I’m outdoors searching for and identifying wildlife tracks and one of my favorite things about winter is being able to see so many stories that go unseen during the rest of the year. While doing the perimeter check of Young’s Hill this morning, I found a bobcat neighbor had made their own loop around Young’s Hill and through the surrounding fields, in search of the owners of all the mice and vole tracks I saw, I suspect:
By afternoon, the sun made a much welcomed appearance and even though the temperatures remained cold, the chimpanzees raced outside. Burrito, Jamie and Missy took off with the humans, while Annie (below) opted to look for snow snacks closer to the greenhouse as she occasionally cast a glance toward the comet streaking across the hill, her bestie, Missy:
Once Missy completed her marathon of one, she joined Annie:
Burrito:
I always have fun asking my wildlife tracking friends to identify these prints. 😉 The Pacific Northwest Mountain Chimpanzee! (foot, left and knuckles, top right):
Speaking of mountains, a mountain of In-Kind donations from our Amazon Wishlist were delivered today and you should see the chimpanzees’ mountain of holiday gifts growing! Many, many thanks to all of you who have been able to help us out with our and the chimps’ wishes, donate toward our year end goal (and hopefully welcoming home six more chimpanzee people!), become a Chimpanzee Pal, a Bovine Buddy, a Produce Patron, Sponsor a Day of sanctuary, or send us your gracious support and love through social media, good ol’ fashioned post, or heartfelt good thoughts. You’re a gift to us, every one of you, in so many ways.
It’s like a giant chimpanzee pretzel, hard to tell where one stops and the other begins!
Glad the gifts are coming in! I felt kind of guilty, sending enrichment and hardware, when I could have given cash which would be matched. But tbh, I think I spent more this way!
Do you friends ever figure it out, Katelyn? They must, considering where you work…or think that there are hobbits roaming them there hills!
Linda, I’ve shown them to professionals who don’t know where I work and you can see the wheels turning. They recognize the prints (I think the foot is one most people see, at least in media), but throw in the snow and it’s an odd thing. 🙂
And we truly appreciate in-kind (Some of yours is in the mountain mentioned :)). These are all things we need and use on a daily basis to keep the sanctuary going and provide the chimps with care and fun stuff! And in-kind purchases allow us to allocate funds to other areas (like a new home for existing and new chimp family members!!), so as we always say, every kind of support and donation, monetary or otherwise, is ever so important and appreciated!
I so enjoy seeing the flexibility of the chimps, just look at Jody and Burrito! And at their age! Unfortunately we human primates lost all that somewhere along the line. Thinking of the Windows post from yesterday, I wonder if the chimps ever spot the bobcats when spying outside some predawn morning.
Wonderful to hear that gifts are pouring in. Seems this year, more than ever, e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e at the sanctuary (and those who will arrive next year!) deservedly need to be spoiled with goodies.
I often wonder who they see as well, Kathleen. Most of the animals come through at night, so I doubt they see many, but I will say Negra has a good set of peepers. I’ve seen her alarm call to the sighting of someone past the top of Young’s Hill, even way up on the roads above us. She often alarm calls during the day and no one can see what she’s talking about, but I’ve since learned to just figure she sees someone we can’t.
Also, we’re loving your advent calendar! Always such fun for us! 🙂
Very interesting blog. Finding footprints in the snow and being able to know what animal it is in
wonderful for you. I’m thinking you are out in the wilds, so to speak, to come up with different
animals as you do. Looks like wrestling is not unique to our human children. The chimps sure
seem to enjoy it also. Thanks for the blogs – so enjoyable.
Hi Barbara,
We definitely are in a rural, mountainous region so we have all manner of wild visitors. Bear, bobcat, coyote, badger, weasel, to name a few, and even an occasional cougar. It’s rare to even know they are here, so it’s always exciting to find their tracks.
December on the hill is looking mighty fine, I too love to search for animal tracks in the snow. I have never seen chimpanzee tracks in snow, and they are wonderful! I hope everyone enjoys their snow snacks, and thank you for the wonderful blog posts! Stay well and stay safe!
C
Caroline,
Enjoying things like tracks in snow, I find the chimp prints particularly delightful, too, unexpected as they are. I’m glad you enjoyed seeing them. 🙂
Such a fun & unexpected paradox…Seeing an imprint or tracks of a chimp’s foot & a chimp’s knuckles in SNOW…I LOVE it…Maybe next time someone will capture one of the chimps (like Burrito…HaHaHa), excitedly eating the snow while they’re *standing” in it…