Orangutan Nest Study

The Primate Unit is starting a study on nest behavior among the orangutans at NZP. We plan to document individual differences in the nesting habits of our resident orangutans and compare population patterns of nesting behavior at NZP with those across several wild orangutan populations. 

Batang bedding down for the night in a large hay nest, complete 

with a sheet and sheet bag (photo credit: Dr. Betsy Herrelko)

Sometimes Bonnie (also Batang) make forts out of their enrichment

My office - with a WILD view

View from my new office:

Sometimes the lions are in the yard just outside our office windows instead. I took this photo while waiting for my burrito to heat up in the microwave:

Definitely the best office I have ever had, in the basement of the Lion/Tiger building:

Back in DC & loving it

The cats and I moved back to my home town (Washington, DC) this past February for a new job at Smithsonian's National Zoo. I love being back in a town that doesn't feel like a city, but is easy walking or Metro distance from anywhere I want to go. I only use my car to drive across the Potomac to visit my parents and go to the same vet, doctor, and dentist I went to when growing up in the VA suburbs.

I love my neighborhood, living next to the Zoo and in easy walking distance of Rock Creek Park, but also having the intrigue of living only a few blocks away from The White House (near where interestingly bizarre things regularly happen when you pay enough attention).

Here are some photos of my new apartment in Woodley Park:

THE FORESTS OF DC: What makes me happiest of all about living living in Washington is that contrary to what some tourists who only make it to the (National) Mall to see monuments, a few museums, and cherry blossoms (if they come at the right time of year) may think, a large chunk of DC and its MD and VA suburbs is made up of beautiful forest, where I feel most at home and spend more time than I do in urban areas. 

Here are a few places I frequent:

  

Rock Creek Park
I spend as much time as possible in some of the more remote areas of the Rock Creek (National) Park forest. Some of the signs are pretty confusing (such as the one at top left indicating that the Western Ridge Trail runs perpendicular to itself), but I always bring a compass and have thus far always found my way out :).

Unlike other large urban parks designed in the 19th century such as New York's Central Park and San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, Washington DC's Rock Creek Park is a natural reserve. Rock Creek Park is a 1,700 acre National Park (more than twice the size of Central Park) and borders Smithsonian's National 163 acre Zoo/my neighborhood.

According to some people Rock Creek "can sometimes feel abandoned and creepy, and is separated from the city by pretty significant topography changes" (DC Mythbusting: Parks | We Love DC). And of course the Western Ridge Trail, my favorite well-known trail in Rock Creek, is where former Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy's body was found in 2002 (Who Killed Chandra Levy - Key Sites in the Levy Case (washingtonpost.com). But I take a few key safety precautions and am personally a fan of "abandoned and creepy" when it comes to woods. While inside the most wooded parts of Rock Creek Park it is hard to believe you are still in DC.

 

Great Falls National Park

MARYLAND SIDE

Kayaking on the Potomac River

Had a great time this summer kayaking on (and a little floating down) the Potomac with a friend from grad school now working at NSF and a group from the State Department with guides from Potomac River Outfitters (three of the group are current/former field primatologists and I will note that we were the first three down each of the rapids!). 

Billy Goat Trail

The Maryland side of the Potomac is basically a big rocky cliff. I hiked the Billy Goat Trail with my supervisor and other local female managers and finally experienced the hike I so often saw people on from the Virginia side of the Potomac. 

VIRGINIA SIDE

Mather Gorge Trail

This is my favorite hiking trail at Great Falls. Entrance is to the right, just past the Visitor's Center in Great Falls, just past the exit to the CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA. I hiked this trail often while growing up in nearby Falls Church, VA and most recently hiked it with a friend from Middle/High School and her daughter. 

I am also happy to be back living in the second most liberal major city in the United States (according to the American Political Science Review):

Living in DC and next door to the Zoo brings me many visitors (more friends have visited since I moved here in February than visited during my entire four years in the Philly suburbs--including two friends who drove 5 hours to meet me in DC for dinner one night!)

 With friends who I worked with years ago in MD, visiting from PA!

A friend from undergrad, visiting before going back to CA. We played Jenga at a milkshake bar in Dupont Circle and visited our alma mater (Bryn Mawr)'s "Lantern Bookstore"in Georgetown--complete with owls, BMC lanterns, and a photo of our most famous alumna, Katharine Hepburn.

Views from the Zoo

Bao Bao the giant panda cub recently beat the Star Spangled Banner flag and Woody Guthrie's original recording of "This Land is Your Land" in the Smithsonian's "Summer Showdown" online public popularity contest. She is ridiculously cute:

…and famous:

Great view of elephants on my way home from work every evening:

Batang traveling from the Great Ape House to the Think Tank via the O-Line (8 towers connecting about 500 ft of cable 50 ft in the air - pretty impressive and all but one of the orangutans choose to travel across it on a daily basis):

 

…and Kiko traveling across the O-line:

With some of my keepers:

Helping out weighing some lion cubs:

There are a lot of very big hills at the Zoo. My favorite one is just over a trail running through Rock Creek Park and leading up to the veterinary and research facilities. Here is a view from above while walking down the hill back to the main grounds of the Zoo:

A young hawk near Elephant Outpost:

View from the browse farm out at the SCBI campus in Front Royal, VA:

So much to do in DC...

All of the forested areas not withstanding, there is also a lot to do in the more urban areas of the city. 

Top left: At The National Mall on a beautiful day during my good friend Ruth's visit before she moved out to the west coast. She introduced me to the wonder of vegan dessert restaurant Sticky Fingers in Columbia Heights, MD and Amsterdam Falafalshop in Adam's Morgan.

Bottom left: panda statue at the local library in Cleveland Park. 

Right: Washington National Cathedral, a giant gothic cathedral just up the street from my local Whole Foods. Sometimes on Sundays I can hear the cathedral bells from my apartment, which reminds me of the time I spent living in Zurich, Switzerland (where the church bells go off throughout the day to help keep time). An amazing place with a lot of history. My mother attended Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's final sermon, which was delivered in the cathedral. This place is seriously amazing (for more much better photos of the National Cathedral, see my posts relating to geocaches I found at and around the Cathedral on the page "Geocaching Escapades".  

Below: The National Aquarium in Baltimore, MD. As a kid I used to visit regularly with my mother and friends, after which we would stop by an amazing place (no longer exists) called The Restore to load up grocery bags filled with miscellaneous things before heading back home. Currently the Aquarium is featuring a spectacular jellyfish exhibit.

Below: I also live a few blocks away from The White House. My father is a member of the Washington Chorus and typically sings at The Kennedy Center. About a year ago he made me very jealous by getting himself invited along with some other members of the Chorus to sing at The White House and visit with Michelle Obama. (my father is the man with the beard in the back row closest to the bottom left of the painting of George Washington, over Michelle Obama's right shoulder).

My grandfather worked for years in The White House: C. Earl Leslie, 91, Dies; Hand-Lettering Artist for Presidents, so one of these days I really need to find an excuse to visit myself! 

Laurel

Growing up, I didn't properly appreciate my name, probably because at the time it was fairly unusual. One year in my cabin at my summer camp in Colorado, all of the other campers and both councilors had some derivation of the name Katherine or Jennifer--and then there was me. Both my first (Meredith) and middle (Laurel) names were unisex and unique. My mother's first name (Carroll) is also a unisex name, pretty neat when I think about it...But I didn't fully embrace my name until undergrad, when during a hall "tea" (We had teas for just about everything at Bryn Mawr, though I don't recall ever having tea at one), each of us gave each other a new name based on our personalities. Without knowing it was my middle name, Laurel was picked for me.

Laurel was nearly my first name - apparently when I was born my father first said "Laurel Meredith" to me before saying "Meredith Laurel", at which point I pulled his finger and determined the order of my names. Years later someone with whom I was once very close called me Laurel, making the fact that since moving to DC I have been called Laurel by everyone in my dreams both curious and bittersweet. My late grandfather went by C.Earl. Maybe I should go by M.Laurel for the second half of my life!    

Little cousin gets married

GRAND RAPIDS, OH

My dad grew up on a dairy farm in rural Ohio. I recently went to my little cousin's wedding at a beautiful restored boarding school in Grand Rapids, Ohio. Her older brother, my other little cousin, married 4 years ago, so now I officially feel old. My Indonesian field assistants always found it amazing that I have only two first cousins, when they each have over 100! After the ceremony I convinced my parents and some of our other relatives to head into the woods on grounds, complete with some interesting stone ruins.