Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Monkeying Around in Tak'eng

Whenever I go hiking in the Tak'eng 大坑 area, I always keep an eye out for monkeys. I've seen them on all four of the trails there, but out of all the times I've gone walking in Takeng, I've only been fortunate enough to catch sight of some of our closest relatives on six occasions. This afternoon was number six. As I was making my up the No. 1 Trail, I came across what I assume were two Formosan macaques 台灣獼猴 sitting on the railings of the wooden walkway. They beat a hasty retreat into the trees as I approached from one direction, and two other hikers neared them coming the other way. However, they didn't go very far, and sat in the trees looking at us watching them. I took a number of photos, none of which turned out very well, and after about ten minutes or so continued my ascent. As I left the scene, three young people came down the walkway and walked right past the two monkeys in the trees, without ever noticing they were there. It made me wonder how many times I had been unknowingly watched from the foliage.


As you can see from the photo on the right, some other kinds of monkey business were going on this afternoon in Takeng :)

No comments:

Post a Comment