Khao Yai gibbons

Here is the Black Team ready to go out to find gibbons.  Notice the sporty leech socks.  Terrestrial leeches are common throughout SE Asia and are most prevalent in the rainy season.  Although we are here in the dry season, we want to be prepared.  The gibbons have to be located before we arrive, and finding them in the vast tropical forest ahead of time is no easy task.  So we enlist the help of my friends from universities in Thailand who have studied and worked with gibbons.  Without this kind of inside help, these bird and gibbon encounters wouldn't be at all possible.

The gibbon researchers that help us every year are in the front row and include Ajarn Mink (L) and Ajarn CC and their undergraduate student Pure (R ).  Shanon and Mikayla are between Mink and CC.  These young ladies are faculty members at Mahidol University.  Not pictured is Ajarn Uey and two more staff members. 

The Black Team looking up at the gibbons in the canopy.

There are interesting animals and plants throughout the forest. Here's a beautiful orchid that was growing on a fallen log.

A few Thai students and Mikayla and Shanon watching the acrobatic gibbons.

The gibbons brachiate from branch to branch with their breathtaking aerial maneuvers.

We were treated to the most fantastic singing display we've ever experienced.  A subadult male was challenging the space occupied by the male from another family.  The two of them were singing to establish ownership of those trees for hours.

Here is the Gold Team posing in front of a medium sized fig tree.  That's Ajarn Uey in the front sitting on a rock.