Monkey Turk

We all know the Turk is wild about picking, catching, growing his own food. I am happy to oblige his interests.  Here in Costa Rica, there are a number of fruit trees on the property and one by one, the turk has come in the door with abundant harvests including lemons, limes, bananas.  There has been one fruit that has eluded him until today - the mango. 

We have a large mango tree with only about 8 mangoes left on it.  They are clearly still on the tree because only a monkey could reach them....until the turk arrived.   Today was the day that monkey-turk was going to harvest mangoes.

the Turk, on a mission

I documented the expedition and had to supply the instrument of harvest - the pool net used to collect the leaves floating on top of the pool.  The turk scampered up the tree and I handed him his 'picker', which  is really just a 'hitter' because he swung it into the mango stems until the stems broke and mangoes rained from the tree.

no, that is not a redpanted bird in the mango tree

I dodged what was certainly a potential concussion by running out of the way, despite the turk yelling for me to catch each mango by hand. As a result, we have 5 mangoes, 3 of which have split.  Undaunted, the turk marched triumphantly back to the house with his bounty having conquered yet another unsuspecting fruit tree.

the long blue arm of the turk