Birds and Monkeys

Monday 11 February 2013

Marjorie and I went to Monkeyland this morning - about  an hour away from Knysna in The Crags. What Monkeyland does is to take monkeys that have been kept in cages or even as household pets and give them proper space to live as monkeys.   It is described as a multi species primate sanctuary.  The bigger ones aren’t here but there are vervets, squirrel monkeys, lemurs, ring tailed lemurs and quite a lot of others.

 

When I came here eight years ago with another sister-in-law, Sylvia,  I ordered a cooked breakfast in the outdoor restaurant and a monkey with a baby on her back swooped down and stole the fried egg from my plate.  This sort of thing must have happened a lot because the outdoor restaurant has been enclosed and is now an indoor one.

Our guide is a nice Dutch girl with a very sore throat.  “I am sorry if you cannot hear me.  I have taken the medicines for this but I think this will be my last tour today and then I will go home.”  She really sounds rough and I want to urge her to go home straight away.  But she is a brave woman and we march around.  It’s a really worthwhile place, as well as being charming.  The monkeys here aren’t particularly afraid of people so they dart about almost under your legs or do what monkeys classically do in films and swing high in the trees above.  

The monkeys like it here.  Plenty of freedom and space and delicious stuff like fruit and nuts served up on the big feeding trays (like bird trays but much bigger) which are placed throughout the site.   A colony of wild vervet monkeys heard about Monkeyland, swung over the trees to get here and are now permanent residents.

The fences around the sanctuary are electrified.  “Not to keep the monkeys in,” croaks our guide, “The monkeys could get out over the trees if they wanted.”   It’s to keep the baboons out.   Baboons aren’t welcome as they would attack and kill the smaller monkeys.   The baboons can’t scale the electric fence or negotiate high trees.

After Monkeyland we cross to the next door site, Birds of Eden.  This is a truly exhilarating place.  It’s a natural forest which has been netted hundreds of feet above.  And within the woods live more than 200 species of previously caged and rare birds.  Jonathan, my ornithologist ex-husband, had emailed me telling me to look out for the very rare Knysna Lorie, as I was staying in Knysna.  Here they keep flying over my head and I’m tempted to send him a picture with a “Guess what I saw today” note, but that would be mean.  Yes, I saw lots of them, Jonathan.  They were at Birds of Eden.   

And golden pheasants and scarlet ibis and flamingos and all kinds of little parrots and weaver birds and two beautiful blue crane.