By Vianney J. Kabwine, Guide - Greystoke MahaleOn the 14th of February with 4 guests, we left camp at around 8:30am. We took a boat up to Sinsiba bay which is few hundred meters north of Greystoke camp and then hiked into the forest a little way. We encountered a group of 4 female chimpanzees feeding on Cordia millenii fruits.
We spent 10 minutes with the first group then our Tracker led us to another group of 4 females with babies that were on the other side of the tree. While the mothers, Canato and Abi were resting on a day resting nest, their babies, Agano (Abi’s baby, who is 4 years old) and Canato`s as yet un-named baby (9 months) were busy playing and jumping from one branch to another. They were playing and hanging between branches, whilst holding hands and legs together. At one point, Agano tried to bite Canato`s baby so that she would fall from the branch that she was holding on. Then they all went where their
mothers were resting and joined them on the nest. They played with their mothers for some time, before leaving them to play together as before.After playing for a while, they went back to their mothers and climbed on their backs. The mothers then joined the first group of females and started walking towards Sinsiba camp. At this point they all went into a swamp area where we were unable to follow. This kind of playing normally occurs at a time when the mothers are resting. During this kind of playing, the babies usually practice what they have observed adults doing, like fishing for black ants, and hanging from branch to branch. In the future this will help them to know which branch to hold on to at what time, or where to swing to when they are moving from one tree to another.
