It was an afternoon on a Saturday, a few hours after I arrived, when I was asked if I wanted to do rounds that night. Rounds are a type of observation here at LFP where we went around trying to find all the lorises and observed them for 30 minutes. With the excitement of the naïve, I jumped at the chance to see my first loris. Little did I know; I was in for a ride.

My first experience

Hi! I’m Lindy, a volunteer here at LFP, I started last week and already I’ve learnt so much from my stay. I started my experience doing rounds with one of the trackers on my first night. In hindsight, it was stupid of me to go on observation so soon after I arrived, I woke up at noon feeling like I had been hit by a bus. But regardless, almost all of my most memorable experience here are from the night observations. Night observation requires you to spend four to six hours observing one loris (or maybe more!) and there are definite challenges.

Lorises at Cipaganti

Lorises here at Cipaganti lives in trees near plantation such as tea, labu, and coffee, while some lives closer to the forest. We sometimes have to hike quite far to get to the observation spot, although other times, we would observe lorises who lives practically in our backyard. One time I had to pass through a small river and hike for almost an hour. As someone who’s not used to hiking, that was not fun. Cipaganti is also very close to the mountains, so on a clear night, temperature can reach the low tens which scares me so much I must’ve worn about five layers of clothing that first night. Sometimes, the loris can be in hard to reach places like bamboo and we would have to crouch under labu plants and try to find an empty spot to fit our heads in. One night I must’ve climb up and down the same spot more than five times because the loris moves around a lot. Even after all of those, we don’t always find the loris, or maybe we did, and they didn’t do anything the whole night. So, you have to sit in the dark and cold trying not to freeze (at least for me).

Lorises are so cute!

Despite all of those, the first time I saw an eye shine, I was so excited I felt like screaming. At least on the inside. If you’re lucky, you will be able to see them move clearly, climbing up and down the trees. Or maybe grabbing some insects from the crown. When you’re really lucky, you can see more than one, maybe you’ll see the mate, or the babies. One time I saw a huddling together and they were so cute I felt like I’ve been blessed. One of my cutest moment was when I saw one of them hanging upside down from a branch by their two feet, and it looks like he was stretching. My favorite thing about them is that from certain angle they look almost like a square with heads because we can’t see their waist and how their face is ridiculously adorable. All in all, observing loris definitely has some challenges, but trust me, all is repaid the minute you saw their cuteness!

LINDY RAMADHIN