This picture is on here in spite of my broken heart about it. It's a picture worth a thousand words and with my apologies here they are... This is a Red Jungle Fowl which is kind of like a wild chicken. After a strenuous, mud-soaked hike across the park, we arrived at camp near the junction of the a river and the ocean. After cleaning up in the river I was sitting around bored when we all noticed a loud cherping sound and this little chick came wondering to our camp from the jungle. I'd love to tell you a happy story but nature isn't so kind usually. I would guess its mother had been caught and eaten by something. For a solid hour I "adopted" the little guy. I tried to help it find its mother then started finding ants for it which it seemed to love. I held it in my hands and it seemed to like that too and didn't want to be set down. Unfortunately I had to set it down to find more ants. As I looked around, it headed off towards the river I guess still looking for its mother. I tried to catch up but it crossed to a ledge on the other side. I couldn't get over there as the tide was coming in. It cherped all afternoon and I kept an eye on it but it was gone the next morning. The tide came in over its ledge during the night and the area was literally crawling with very large monitor lizards so I doubt it met a happy ending. I wish I could have kept the little guy. I would have happily found it ants. Here's a fairwell video. I'm so sorry, little guy.
Ujong Kulon National Park, Indonesia Jan 2012