Upper Peirce Reservoir - Monkeys

 There used to be many monkeys in Upper Peirce Reservoir. You see entire troops complete with three-generation families. They were quick to learn that humans would stop to give them junk food if they sat along the side of the long stretch of road leading into the Park. For years, there were signs displayed prominently at the park to tell people not to feed to monkeys for they would become a nuisance to visitors and it is not helping them to manage on their own and exist in the wild getting food their own way. Still, people took scarce notice of these signs even though there is a fine if they were caught.

Today, the presence of monkeys that used to overwhelm visitors to this park seemed to have diminished and most of those we saw were young monkeys on their own except for this family consisting of a mother and three young monkeys under a flowering Saraca tree. The mother was grooming her children and the two younger ones were playing with each other and eventually they settled down to eat the flowers of the Saraca tree - something that surprised me for I have never seen monkeys eating flowers.