Zoo Day (No 4)

I spent some time this morning doing an online change of address on the Council website. All the usual stuff - it seemed familiar. I got a reference number. I then realised I had filled it in a couple of weeks ago and have a different reference number. I’m more organised than I gave myself credit for! I emailed them to assure them that I’m only moving once.

Zoo Day, and interesting speakers about research in Living Links with capuchin and squirrel monkeys. Lots of graphs, lots of data, which conclude that doing these little experiments is beneficial for the monkeys' welfare. They showed one terrific video (though not from the Edinburgh research) about what happens when the monkey doesn’t feel he’s been treated fairly. Only a couple of minutes long, and definitely worth a watch!

I wandered up to Living Links and spent AGES there. And it had nothing to do with the torrential rain that fell. They were just fascinating to watch. They really have a fantastic area to live in, and were running around, playing together, and leaping on to the window ledge constantly. This, of course, was great for the kids to watch.

The lighting was terrible, especially at the window, so it was impossible to get a good shot there, where all the action was happening. Occasionally they’d stop on a branch where there was more light. I got one usable shot. I have dark grainy ones of a wee boy, opening up a fruit chewy thing, and a line up of squirrel monkeys right at the window, watching him. No, watching the packet. How did they know that was food? I’ve got blurry ones of the same wee lad eating a banana, with a lineup of monkeys watching his every bite, but of course, they would recognise that as food.

I think that must be a lovely job, just watching monkeys all day and ticking a list of behaviours...

Limonaid came and said hello. She spotted me shoving toddlers out of the way to get a shot of the monkeys at the window…

A bit of a treat today - the bus went straight along Princes Street, out past Haymarket Station and beyond. This has not been possible for six long years of digging up!! Of course, I then had to play the old game of ‘find my bus stop’.

An email from Mr Hellmann, who was sorry to hear of my problem with the new squeezy bottle. So he missed the whole point of my nippy email and photo. He would like to reimburse me. I have replied that I don’t want reimbursed, I want them to fix the unsqueezy squeezy bottle. I won’t hold my breath. And I won’t buy it.

PS I'm now a big fan of capuchins! Check out this video, how they can be trained to help people.