Bonito - Birds

We have two items on our itinerary today: birds and fish.  Our appointment with the fishes was at 11:00am, so we had to get up early to drive out to the bird location, a sink hole on a farm which has been converted to a well-kept ecotourism spot.  We hired our Embiara driver to accompany us throughout our Bonito excursion so now we have an easy ride to each of our destinations and back to the airport tomorrow.  His English, however, is nonexistent, so we were pleased to find that the Macaw location had an English speaking guide ready to lead us around. 

The particular bird we were going to see is the Red-and-green Macaw.  I say "going" instead of "aiming" because there's really no question that you would see the Macaws.  We had already seen a few on Embiara.  The cool thing about the sink hole, other than the fact that it's huge, is that it's a nesting grounds for the birds. 

We walked around the rim of the sink hole and stopped at the first lookout location.  At first, we just heard them as we marveled at the immensity of the sink hole.

After a few minutes, we began to see flashes of color swooping below us.

Pretty soon, pairs of Macaws were whizzing back and forth across the sink hole.  As it turns out, these birds mate for life and then seem to hang out constantly.  

They were so clingy that if we saw three birds flying together, we looked around for the fourth...

... but I suppose somebody's gotta guard the nest.

  

The Ibis frequents this sink hole as well. 

They are not so obviously in pairs though.

Sometimes the Macaws will just sit up in a branch squawking.

Toucan play at that game.

More than other birds, the Macaws strike me as intelligent, curious and even playful.  Here's a couple falling off a branch together.

It was so nice in the shady overlook that we stuck around a while and practiced our photography skills...

... starting with some action shots ...

... and concluding with a close-up...

... or two.

Next, we made our way to the second overlook on the opposite side of the sink hole.  Along the way we found a plant that with leaves that retract when touched.  There's probably a fancy biology term for it, but we didn't learn it.

We spotted an owl on our walk as well.

And a Motmot... again, it's a bit hard to see the cool tail here.

I've seen these birds before...

Then we were there.  It was somewhat sunnier on this side, without the trees giving us shade.

It occurs to me now that we should have asked more about the geology that goes into making a sink hole.

More and more Macaws began to appear.  This is not a fruit tree:

Here's a shot of some Macaws flying close to our previous photo-spot.

There's another nest in the rocks here, I'm assuming.

It gets hot out here pretty early, but I'm always impressed with birds' ability to grin and bear it.

Where's the fourth?

Another happy couple.

Oh there's one by itself.

Just kidding!

Are these bird photos getting a little monogamous for you?

Must be rough to be a single Macaw.

We wrapped up our tour of the sink hole with plenty of time to spare.  Our next adventure wasn't until 11:00am and it wasn't even 10.  I was kicking myself for not getting an extra hour of sleep, but I suppose that it was good because people were beginning to arrive and tour the grounds.  We got lucky having our own private guide.

This post is getting a little long, and we took just as many fish pictures during the next excursion.  Thus, I think I'll make a separate post for the fishies.  Here's a little preview of our next destination since it is in keeping with our bird theme anyway:

A group of parakeets hung around the headquarters of the snorkeling operation.

... probably because they were baited with these seeds.

Last Boat Ride Before Bonito

Today is our final day at Embiara.  Actually, it's only a half day because the drive to our next destination takes about six hours, four of which are on the windy dirt road out of the wetlands.  For our final activity we opted for another boat ride in hopes of seeing the giant otter family.  

By this point another guest had arrived, a photographer who went by the name Pualiño.  He didn't speak much English and we didn't speak much Portuguese, but Ming was able to communicate with him every once in a while with broken Spanish.  This morning he also chose to do the river, but there were two boats and he had his own native guide.  Thus, he went downstream and we went upstream (towards the bridge we had driven to the day before.)

Birdlife was pretty much a constant along the river banks.  Here's a Jacamar, which is supposedly related the bee-eater.

These guys scurry along the sand pestering other birds.

A Great Egret.

An Above-Average Egret.

It's hard to see in this shot, but the tail feathers of this bird have an interesting feature: the tips are shaped like tennis rackets.  It is a type of Motmot and it supposedly dwells in that hole in the river bank.

Unfortunately, we did not see the giant otter on this trip, but we did get one last surprise before heading home for lunch.  A tortoise was struggling to climb a steep section of river bank.   

There was no chance that the little guy was going to make it up the bank so Sam helped him out.

At lunch Pauliño told us that he saw the giant otters from the other boat.  Curses.  Well, he's undoubtedly a better photographer than us, so hopefully he snapped some good shots of them.

After lunch we packed our luggage into the car and started our long journey back to civilization.  On the trip back we saw cow after cow after cow.  I was keeping my eyes peeled and camera ready for something more interesting, but there wasn't much.  Until I put the camera away.  Then I saw a ring-tailed animal dart under a fence.  Ming saw it too, but the driver didn't so we couldn't really verify what it was despite Ming's valiant attempts to express the idea of a ringed-tail with a combination of pantomime and broken Spanish.  Thinking back on it, we're pretty sure it was a Coati, a raccoon-like animal that frequents the wetlands.  Hard to know for sure though.

When we got into Bonito we picked up our tickets for the next day's excursion and then got dropped off at the hotel for some much needed rest.

A day of boats... mostly

We spent today on the water.  We started out on canoes which, for reasons still unclear to me, were branded with the word "kayak."  Ming and I don't like to go anywhere without our cameras (else-wise how would you prove you were there) so we bravely brought them aboard.  Well, actually, I made her go in a different boat so that if one of us tipped over, the other camera would still be safe.

I followed Sam and Ming along the shore until we were about as far from the truck as we could get.

I was happily snapping photos and patting myself on the back for cleverly separating our cameras when we suddenly heard a heavy hissing sound in the distance.  It grew louder and louder until it was in the trees just offshore.  By the time I realized what it was, the wall of rain was already moving across the lake.  I had just enough time to put my camera in its case and curse myself for leaving my poncho in the truck.  Ming did the same.  We got soaked.

Needless to say, we didn't take many pictures during our brief time on this lake.  We did get relatively close to a few birds before it started raining.  Here's a Jabiru stork.

Ok, so the spoonbill flew before I could get it.

Once it started raining we decided to head back to our the truck and get our ponchos.  By the time we got back it had basically stopped.  We decided maybe the lake was cursed, put on our ponchos just in case, and made our way to the second lake of the day.

This lake was cool because there was much more vegetation, but the water was crystal clear.

This green stuff is nicknamed jaguar ear since it's fuzzy inside.

This one is nicknamed "white flower" by me... because I don't know the name and it seemed apropos. 

I seem to have written myself into a corner here...

OK, now this is cool.  This is not a flower but giant glob of snail eggs!

There's an animal in this next one... do you see it?

I scared some black-bellied whistling ducks when I got too close.  They got pretty noisy (as the name implies) as they flew off.

A Kingfisher watching, waiting.

Even the Caimans (sp? Caimen?) are less afraid when you're in their territory -- the water.

Here's a clearer shot of the tiny frogs that skitter across the lily pads.  This shot's cool because you can even see his tiny reflection.  These frogs remind me of the spring peepers I used to catch when I was a kid, though now that I think of it, these might have been even smaller.  I guess I don't know where in their lifecycle they are though:

A close-up.  I'm not sure what that white speck is on his back.  Maybe just debris, maybe some sort of bug?

Overall, this lake-experience was significantly better than the previous one an hour before.

Though it was significantly more difficult getting in and out.

We decided not to chance a third lake, even though it was the one in which the probability of spotting an anaconda was highest.  Since neither Stefan nor Sam had seen one themselves in all their years and months in this area, not going was a calculated risk.  Instead we took the (very) long way home to see if we could spot some more land animals along the way.

More deer.  This time Bambi came along.  Even the deer are protected here though, so no worries regarding the mother.

These are not my hands.  They are Sam's.  I don't hold anything with more than four legs.  Ever.

Now for a quick digression about our guides.  Sam's a quiet, extremely knowledgable, somewhat cynical, Scottish student on his way to earning a Master's degree in Biology.  To hear him tell it, he is studying waterfalls.  Apparently, he captures them, tags them, and releases the waterfalls back into the wild.  The confusion regarding his research will go on for some time unless you listen closely enough to realize that he is actually saying "water fowls" with a Scottish accent.  

Stefan, who wasn't with us for the canoeing but who would join us later in the afternoon, is very different.  He is generally a cheerful guy with an English accent.  Although the accent's slightly different from Sam's, it makes our conversations equally interesting.  When I told him that we named the spider in our room Harry, he asked "Harry or Hairy?"... in most parts of the US, those words are pronounced the same.  My best guess is that Prince Harry decreed that they would be said differently in England.  I can't blame him.  It should also be noted that Stefan is excruciatingly nice.  You can tell that he cares a lot about the experience of his guests.

Stefan and Sam have senses of humor that are on opposite ends of the sense-of-humor-spectrum.  Actually, in Stefan's case it is more of a lack thereof.  This is not to say that Stefan is not funny.  He is arguably ingeniously hilarious.  He just doesn't really have a sense of it.  Or perhaps his act is so well-fabricated that he just gave me that perception.  Stefan's a little like if Mr. Rogers were to play main character of The Office.  Instead of painfully awkward pauses after incredibly inappropriate comments, just imagine painfully awkward pauses after incredibly innocuous puns.  Sam plays the perfect foil with a sarcastic retort to each of Stefan's attempts at a joke.  It is difficult to describe why this is funny in much the same way that it is difficult to describe why The Office is funny.  

Anyway, take a look at this next picture of a dried-up-lake turned grassy depression.  

Notice how you always have more egrets in a depression?

This is the classic pose of the capybara.  The one-eyed side stare.

They teach their young this stare early:

While the mama and baby Capybara grazed near the pond, we heard a few birds get into a squabble.  Just then a stork took flight to escape an angry tern.  I'm not sure exactly what the tern was planning to do if he caught up.

There was a spoonbill mucking around in the water as well.

A little further along the road Sam spotted a toucan.  Amazingly, I resisted calling him Toucan Sam for the remainder of the trip.  It's also striking how little the Fruit Loops mascot resembles an actual toucan.  Turns out that it's not a very nice bird either.  It will often plunder the nests of other birds to get a little protein in their diet.

With that, we meandered home along the bumpy farm roads, getting there just in time for a quick shower before lunch.  After lunch was nap time.  After nap time was another boat ride.  This time on the river and with a motor.

Again, one of the first animals we saw was the Neotropic Otter.  They are not as graceful on land.  The black slimy log in this picture is actually the otter.

We were really hoping to see the giant otter one of these times.  The neotropic is more of a solo species, while the giant otters hang out in groups.  Alas, all we ever saw were footprints.

We have a lot of shots of herons taking off because we consistently scared them 100 meters downstream.

We'd arrive there a few minutes later.

I'm guessing a little bit here, but I think this is a Striated Heron.  OK, so that's a pretty broad guess given that the Striated Heron is broken down into over 20 subspecies... but I'm hedging my bets.

I'm beginning to think the birds know they're good looking, so they just stare into the mirror all day.

Caimans, on the other hand, just like to lurk.

Two can play at that game.

The black bird in this next shot is the aforementioned skimmer.  Notice the long lower beak for lapping up whatever's unfortunate enough to be in its flight path.

I've completely forgotten what this bird was... and he appears to be unhappy about it.

This is a Jacamar.  Zoom in to see the insect in its mouth!

Here's a kingfisher.  No need to zoom in here.  Looks like he bit off more than he could chew.

When we got close he flew off.  A tern got wind of his catch, though, and chased him.  I don't know if he held on.

We drifted down river another mile as the sun went down.

A capybara was lazing on the bank.

So Ming wanted a picture with it... but we too were feeling lazy, and didn't get very close to it.

The nice thing about an evening boat ride is that the hot day subsides into a cool and peaceful evening on the water.

Not a bad way to spend a day in the Pantanal.

The birds looked relaxed as the sun set.

Even Stefan looked relaxed.

Eventually we turned on the gas motor and the boat gurgled its way back to the lodge.

We got back and had dinner at which point Stefan informed us that we had the option of going on a night drive to look for animals.  As we were leaving, a huge Cane Toad was hopping around the garage.  It seemed particularly upset with Sam, who happened to be wearing a hat made out of Cane Toad skins at the time.

Due to the darkness, it was difficult to take a picture of anything on the night drive.  We saw some peccaries dart into a forest and some deer sitting out in the fields.  We even glimpsed a fox taking a late night stroll.  This is the only picture I got, though, mainly because the subject matter wasn't running away: