Macaques, finally...

A horrible week at work was memorably washed from my memory as I spent an hour today watching the Japanese Macaques in Arasiyama, near Kyoto. I went birding this morning with Neil and an Auzzie called James, who has come out with us on a couple of previous occasions but is heading back to Australia for a holiday before going to Thailand for 2 months and to a job in Turkey teaching English either in a language school or a Uni in Istanbul. Nice.






Anyway, we birded the hills surrounding Arashiyama which were beatiful, lush and very green after the recent heavy rains. Bird song was evident but the birds themselves were not. However, a fly-by and perched thereafter Green Pigeon (or sometimes known as White bellied Green Pigeon) was a lifer for me which made the 4am rise well worth it. Apart from that and a Long-billed Plover, it was very quiet. Everthing is breeding, feeding young or just about getting down to it. So, birding is very much like hard work.

At 1pm we decided to call it a day as the heat was getting too much so I said my goodbyes to the boys at Arashiyama, while they continued on to Kyoto. My mission, to find the Macaques. I knew I was going to find them as the feeding station in Arashiyama has about 150 monkeys there at this time of year. A wee entrance fee and a 15 minute walk up the steep mountain side brings one to the feeding area. Tourists are warned not to stare the monkeys in the eye as this will be a sign that you are interested in a gloves off and no-holds barred confrontation. It was quite strange being put inside a cage to feed these wild, yet "tame" macaques. A bag of nuts of fruit for 100yen and the the Macaques just stick their hand in through the cage mesh to recieve the food. It's amazing watching their hands move and ever so gently remove the peanuts or fruit from one's hand/fingers. Quite remarkable really how alike we are.

I then wandered about outside, taking photos, and just sitting down observing them. Most of the time they were lying around, preening each other. At one point, a young Macaque came along and sat down beside me. I wanted to look at him but for fear of recieving a right hook from a southpaw, I just sat there and admired the view of Kyoto, which was quite spectacular. He/she just sat there for a bit, scratched it's head, squeaked and walked off, non-plussed. Brilliant. The troupe is a very well studied group, with each of the members having a name and their date of births known. There were many age groups there, from the old boys to the wanna-be gang, to the teenagers and newly born. They were quite aggressive towards each other when being fed by the humans, but generally, when not taking hand outs, were just sitting in the trees, grooming each other or just walking around strutting their stuff. One of the monkeys had only one eye, as you can see from the photo below. I really enjoyed just hanging around there. I'll have to go back again.

I then headed home and did the usual Sunday drivel. I also managed to catch up with V for Vendetta on Saturday. I really liked the movie, but then again I'm a sucker for those kind of movies. I thought Natalie was stunning and Hugo Weaving superb as V. Stephen Rea was excellent as the cop. I think it is well worth going to see. But that's just me...


Carmo's Birds: GREEN PIGEON; Long-billed Plover

Carmo's Diet: this week, I have mostly been eating vegtables and salmon

Carmo's Birds for Byrdy: Kiera Knightley