Wildlife

Small Chipmunk.  Big noise.

The flora and fauna here in India are a bit different than North America.   There are certainly more similarities than differences,  but the differences are significant.  The birds look to be standard issue,  Ravens,  Pigeons, and Sparrows;  but they seem to be outfitted with an internal loudspeaker.  It's hard to sleep past dawn even with the windows shut.   Actually the birds are only partially responsible for the din at dawn.  The chipmunks here have a piercing chirp (something like a Blue Jay),  but they chirp incessantly for a few minutes at a time.  





Wild monkeys take take the most getting used to.  They come in all sizes from 3 foot adults on down.   The monkeys are a littler harder to spot than the rest of the wild mammals because the monkeys tend to hang out in the trees and move quickly when there is food to be had.  The kids school,  The International School of Bangalore,  is out in country and surrounded by trees.  The scaffolding on the addition under construction makes a great jungle gym.  They move from the trees to the scaffolding and into the classrooms with ease.  

Real Monkeys are hard to photograph with a slow camera.
The best I can do is this guy in the green shirt.

It is common for the monkey to come into the classroom looking for a snack.  So common,  sometimes the teachers don't even stop class.  The kids had to tell me this about 3 times before I believed.  Cheetos are a favorite.  Fortunately,  these are typically the small monkeys.  The big adults don't come into school unless the classroom is empty.

The big monkeys hang out at the "Tuck Shop".  This is the on-campus snack shop the kids go to after school for chips and candy.  The adults will hang out here looking for scraps.  One of Will's friends,  who is a little too afraid of the monkeys, ran when surprised and lost both his chips and wallet.   He got the wallet back after the Monkey couldn't eat it.