Here’s some really sweet photos of Foxie and Negra grooming in the warm greenhouse yesterday. I especially like the one where Foxie is poking Negra’s ear!
primate rescue
Jamie and her ukulele
The chimps usually are not too interested in music (or any noise-making things in general) but today Jamie was really interested in playing this toy ukulele. She carried it around for most of the afternoon! She kept looking at it very up close, and my assumption is that she was trying to figure out how the noise was coming from the hole in the ukulele.
Goldilocks and the three bamboo stalks
The other day Missy tried to climb the bamboo on Young’s Hill, but she couldn’t make it very far before it slowly gave way to her body weight. Today she went around to try and find a sturdier stalk, and it reminded me of the story of Goldilocks and the three bears:
Spiderweb Day
Today Jackie and I set up a giant spiderweb in the playroom with some ribbon and crepe paper. Foxie was pretty entertained! She spent at least 45 minutes pulling and slapping the web.
The Many Nests of Jamie Chimpanzee
I was watching Jamie gather blankets and enrichment to make a nest in the playroom this morning and thinking about some of the unique and impressive nests she makes. She has some nesting habits that distinguish her from the other chimpanzees.
She often forms a circle with her blankets and leaves bare floor underneath:
When she’s making a nest near some caging, she likes to weave blankets or sheets in and out of the fencing:
But her favorite spot to nest seems to be at the base of the stairs in the playroom (maybe because it’s a good vantage point for keeping an eye on all of her chimpanzee and human friends). The nests she makes there always include an interesting combination of blankets, sheets, paper, toys, and any other suitable material she can find. She’ll generally walk around gathering her materials, arrange everything in a pleasing fashion, then settle down in the nest and inspect all the enrichment she’s collected.
Slurp, slurp, slurp
Yesterday Jackie and I set up a great enrichment project for the chimps. We filled buckets with some snow and added a little juice for flavor, and then we put the buckets outside the caging and gave the chimps straws to use as tools. Everyone had their own way of trying to get the most out of the buckets. Eventually all the snow completely melted and the buckets were dry, but we certainly found a way for this project to last longer than just juice in buckets.
A cold snack
I know we’ve had a lot of posts about the snow lately, but I just couldn’t resist posting this adorable video from yesterday.
