Vanessa's Journal

Jan. 14

Today was an exciting day! Soon after Lao Fan and I started our hike to check the traps we heard a noise.  I looked up to see an animal scampering up a tree and thought, wow that is an agile creature.  It was none other than a golden monkey! There were more than 100 of them up at Erdaoping. All of a sudden, the trees came alive. It had snowed the night before so every time one of them moved, the snow would shake off of the trees and they would shake. 

They are all part of one large troop and they migrate through different areas of this part of Wolong. They come to Wuyipeng two or three times a year. They are key members of the Wuyipeng cast of animal characters and I was hoping they would make an appearance this winter. I had never seen one in person so it was a treat for me. It was difficult to see them because they are so quick and agile and they effortlessly jump from tree to tree and manage to hide themselves among the leaves, so it was more of an audio experience more than anything else. It sounded like they were singing, as they made so many different sounds and all echoed off of one another like a chorus.  It was beautiful to hear. 

I did catch glimpses of them here and there. Lao Fan is so funny sometimes because whenever we run into a noteworthy event, he turns into a zealous photographer and runs off on the trail with the camera to catch a snapshot of the event. I usually stay behind hoping he comes back to get me. So I was just standing there by myself and some of the monkeys were climbing a tree right above me.  I don’t think they saw me because I hadn’t moved since I got there. They just climbed from tree to tree and as they reached the spot over my head, the snow fell from above onto my face and I just smiled. There were three of them and they jumped gracefully one after the other in a line. 

Then we continued on and left them to their singing and jumping. Cage checking went as usual, except one of our squirrel friends activated one of the Jianpengzi traps and we had to re-set it. This is one of the most-likely-to-catch-a-panda traps, so we were on pins and needles when we first saw the door closed.  As it turns out, it was a false alarm. The new traps are sort of out in the middle of nowhere and that requires some significant ‘off roading’ so to speak.  I got a mouthful of bamboo and various shrubs and also had some close and personal encounters with large rocks. Lao Fan was leading the way, as he is the master of finding ‘the path of least resistance’.  I just followed along and at times wondered if we were lost, but we ended up in all the right places. 

At one of the new traps, we ran into about 30 of our dear friends the blood pheasants.  I really enjoy their presence. They are so fascinating.  I love to watch them run around and interact with one another while looking for their food. 

As we continued on, we ended up running into the monkeys again.  I felt so badly about it because they started up their chorus of “Run, the people are here!” again.  I feel like we stayed too long, but it is just so rare to see them and we were so excited about it.  My memorable moment from this encounter was seeing one older monkey who seemed like somewhat of a loner in the group climb to a tree near where I was standing to sit for a rest. It stayed for just a moment but it was long enough for me to see it vigorously shake off the snow from its hair just like a dog. I could relate, as I had picked up a significant amount of snow myself from our earlier ‘off roading’ experience. 

The snow is still coming down.  Folks, I think we might actually have a real winter.