Rain!

Tags

Amazon kingfisher, anhinga, boat-billed heron, coati, great horned owl, Jabiru, jacana, monk parakeet, orange-backed troupial, potoo, ringed kingfisher, rufescent tiger heron, southedrn rough-winged swallow, sunbittern, toco toucan, woodcreeper

I didn’t always join the group for every little excursion on foot, especially when it meant getting up even earlier than usual.  Here’s what I missed on one occasion, video again courtesy of Dave Allen. Charming coatis.

Overnight it had rained, and the atmosphere was very damp indeed on Saturday, 26th, though a little, a little, cooler.  This is what the rain had done to the tree outside my room.After breakfast, I did go for a little wander in the grounds on my own, and climbed the observation tower, to see a Jabiru stork nest from another angle. I actually switched my camera to video, and took this experimentally myself, and was intrigued to see a teenager learning how to arrange the nest.

The cawing you can just hear in the background is Chaco chachalacas. I was pleased to see (and recognise!) a monk parakeet up there as well.

We set off on another boat ride, in the other direction.  The river soon narrowed down, from this,

to this

There was frequent reversing and roaring of motor to free the propeller from greenery

There were just so many birds, over our heads, beside us, around us.

Anhinga

Boat-billed heron, unfortunately hiding most of its boat-bill

Two toco toucans and anhinga

Sunbittern

Amazon kingfisher

Southern Rough-winged Swallow

Ringed kingfisher

Rufescent tiger-heron

The other boat forges the way for ours among the water hyacinth

The flower is very pretty

We disembarked to go for a short walk in the woods, to see this, a Great potoo. It didn’t move a muscle all the time we were there, hoping (thinking?) that we couldn’t see it.

Great potoo

Narrow-billed woodcreeper

It was only around 9.00 when we got back, and it was damp, starting to rain again.

We agreed to reconvene at 10.30 to see whether it was still raining and to decide whether to go for another stroll in the grounds, with a particular bird in mind.

It wasn’t, so we did.

Wattled jacana (it wasn’t this we had in mind)

Before we got to our goal, it started raining again, but we decided to press on.  And got soaked.  Still we saw the

Great horned owl

just about. We sheltered under its huge tree, which made a little difference to our degree of wetness, and made our way back to the lodge when the rain slightly eased.  Still, I got another, more subdued, sighting of the lovely orange-backed troupial, in the tree by my room.

Brown-chested martins

A very early start

Tags

Amazon kingfisher, black vulture, caracara, Howler monkey, marsh deer, Pantanal, Porto Jofre, scarlet-headed blackbird, southern screamer, Southwild, Transpantaneira

After a 5.15 breakfast, it was time to load our safari truck with baggage and sleepy bodies, and set off on what was forecast to be a six-hour drive to Porto Jofre, at the end of the Transpantaneiro, where we would almost be at our next accommodation.

Cactus in flower. We did see a bird drinking the nectar at one point

Fortunately, road repairs had been such that the drive not as long as feared. Here one of the dicey bridges is being repaired. (In the dry season you can drive into and out of some of the gullies.)

 

Howler monkeys. The (black) male’s dawn roar may be heard three kilometres away

Marsh deer

Piling in again after a comfort stop

Amazon kingfisher

Scarlet-headed blackbird. In life it glowed even more than this.

Great egret

Southern screamers

Pleased that the drive had not been quite as tiring as we feared, we had to wait a little before our transfer boat was available at Porto Jofre. A few more photo-opportunities.

Porto Jofre

Is the Caracara’s permanent expression more that of puzzlement or of being affronted?

Black vulture

Our boatman helping us load up. Dig those boots!

25 minutes later we had first sight of our ‘flotel’, run by Southwild.

Because we had arrived earlier than expected it was after lunch before we had access to our splendid rooms. (You couldn’t possibly call this a cabin, and is that description appropriate on a boat that goes nowhere anyway?)

Two hours to settle in and rest before we set out for our afternoon boat ride.

Giant anteater, tapir…

Tags

Amazon kingfisher, black-collared hawk, capuchin monkey, capybara, caracara, chestnut-eared aracari, giant anteater, green ibis, Jabiru, rufescent tiger heron, tapir, toco toucan, vermilion flycatcher

Late afternoon and into dusk on Sunday afternoon, into the safari truck again. We were making for a specific spot, and en route saw birds new to us, and old friends:

Green ibis, as if green were not already my favourite colour

Chestnut-eared aracari

Caracara (not to be confused with the large rodent, the Capybara – we saw both every day)

The Rufescent tiger heron again

The stunning Vermilion flycatcher

Toco toucan

Jabiru

and Black-collared hawks

Then we parked, silent, at a respectful distance from a pool where animals were known to come to drink – on the other side – as darkness fell.  Thanks to just a moderately good camera, and a little computer-aided lifting (but, promise, no distortion), I am pleased to be able to record for my future reminiscing, most of the creatures we saw there in the gathering gloom.

Amazon kingfisher

Capuchin monkey

Two toco toucans

The extraordinary Giant anteater, about 2 metres from snout (to the left!) to tail

Bare-faced curassow

Tapir

On the way back it was dark, and we saw, ‘lamped’,

a better view of a tapir

…and the ‘cutest’ young Capybara – so far.

The Brazilian Pantanal

Tags

Amazon kingfisher, black-collared hawk, Brazil, brocket deer, caiman, caiman lizard, capybara, crab-eating fox, egret, Jabiru, Pantanal, Pouso Alegre, rhea, rufescent tiger heron, seriema, Transpantaneira, wood stork

If on a map you bisect South America into equal halves, from various points, then where your lines cross is the Pantanal, ‘South America’s Wetland Jewel’, 210,000 sq km (half the size of California, and 20 times the size of the Everglades), average width 500 km, average altitude around 130 m, of seasonally flooded swampland.  70% of it lies in Brazil. Bolivia and Paraguay share the rest. The wet season is from November to March. The Pantanal’s low population lives mainly by cattle ranching. It is one of the most spectacular areas on earth for wildlife.  Its main habitats are grassland (31%) two kinds of woodland, marshes, forest, and floating mats.

We were there, in the Mato Grosso, towards the end of the dry season.  We expected  temperatures to be in the high 20°s C in the day, and coolish evenings. In fact we experienced the high 30°s, with little relief later in the day.  It was also humid, loved by various biting and stinging insects.  No matter – it was all worth it. This is the first of perhaps 15 photo-blogs about the trip.

On Saturday 19th September, 24 hours after leaving home, after lunch, I found myself with 10 other wildlife tourists and two naturalist guides, Nick from the UK and Fiorella (Italian name, Peruvian nationality) at Poconé, transferring into this safari truck for a four-hour journey to our first lodge.  How we welcomed the (albeit warm) breeze its open sides allowed, quite apart from the viewing opportunities they gave.

What an introduction to the area’s wildlife, as we travelled initially in cerrado woodland, then on the only road into (but piercing less than halfway across) the Pantanal, the 148 km Transpantaneira, with its 120 ‘bridges’ (dicey wooden same-level crossings of streams and ditches).

Amazon kingfisher

Those white blobs are metre-high termite mounds

Plumbeous ibis

A note on the names of birds. Birders were thrilled to see and or hear over 200 different bird species while we were there.  I managed to learn the name of perhaps 20, and to photograph perhaps the same number, though these do not necessarily coincide.  If I give no name here, it means I don’t know or have forgotten it.  An ‘?’ means I am fairly sure, a ‘??’ means I think it might be.  I shall hope perhaps to refine these over the coming weeks, but with a ten-day trip to cover, I prefer to get on with the account than spend hours at this stage trying to find them in my 2000+ page bird book.  Any assistance with the task would be appreciated…

Red-legged seriema

Now we saw more creatures of the waterways, crowded closer together as the swamps had all but dried out.

Rufescent tiger heron which has just taken a baby caiman

Chased off by parent caiman

A note on my photographs.  I have preferred to use pictures which tell the story best rather than those which are technically the best.  Moving and/or wobbly vehicles, (truck and boats), dust, haze, rain, misted lenses, very low light at dawn and dusk, made for difficult photographic conditions at times.  Them’s my excuses anyway.

Our first Rhea

Wood stork

Black-collared hawk

Capybara with Wattled jacanas, cooling off

Caiman lizard, about a metre long

Great egrets

Great egrets, Jabiru storks and possibly Snowy and/or Cattle egrets

Egrets with Caiman. These crocodilians are up to 7 feet long, not nearly as terrifying as their more well-known relatives, though it was these which used to be taken to make ‘crocodile’ goods etc.

We had turned off the Transpantaneira, and were but two or three kilometres from our first lodge, when the driver announced that we had a flat tyre.  We were obliged to get off for a while, so went for a walk along the track.  Exhausted as we were after all that travelling, we were pleased nevertheless to see creatures we might otherwise have missed.

Red brocket deer

Brown brocket deer

and several more birds. No-one was sorry though to climb back on the truck, shortly afterwards to arrive, at dusk, at the place where were to stay for the next two nights:

Despite our exhaustion we were persuaded by our naturalist guides to go for a night drive, where, ‘lamped’ by Fiorella, a Pauraque (nightjar)

and a crab eating fox were revealed to us,

along with a crab-eating racoon, of which I did not get a photo.

Bed was never more welcome.