other wildlife in the Pantanal and the Amazon

Some of the people with me on my holiday in Brazil were not birders, and even those of us who were there for the birds were also keen to see some of the other inhabitants of Mato Grosso state. The iconic jaguar was top of the wanted list for most of us, and we had a couple of days at Porto Jofre where they are most often seen (from a boat) as they come to the edge of one of the rivers to drink or hunt.  After many hours on the water, in fact when we were on our way back for lunch, we finally found our jaguar - a female, apparently with two large cubs in tow although we did not see the cubs.  She prowled through the vegetation alongside the river, occasionally coming right down to the water as in the picture above, giving us plenty of time to admire her and try to get a decent picture.

What you don't realise from the picture above, however, is that there must have been a dozen or so boats jostling for position on the water as we all followed her progress - many belching out fumes from their engines - and a small number going much closer than they should have, at one  point effectively blocking her from swimming across a small tributary as they all tried to get a better view for their occupants.  It detracted a little from the experience, for me at least, and I hope they can soon put in place some regulations to prevent these magnificent animals from being hassled.  They are certainly used to being watched by tourists whenever they come to the water's edge but I felt it had gone a little too far.  In the afternoon we came upon another load of people watching a jaguar cub swim across the river; we kept our distance so as not to disturb the animal, and were later told that it had spent a lot of time at the water's edge, clearly wanting to cross (the mother was already on the other side), before the boats eventually backed off a little to give some space.

Besides the jaguars I think our favourite mammal of the trip was the tamandua, a member of the anteater family with black and tan fur, that forages in the forest for termites.  This tamandua was aware that it was being watched (we were upwind so able to get quite close but eventually it heard the ten pairs of feet crunching on dead leaves and sticks) and so stood up on its back legs and opened its front legs wide - as if to embrace us - in an attempt to look big and frightening. Sadly no pictures good enough to share.

A giant anteater was also seen, briefly by torchlight, and this cute little nine-banded armadillo.

There were capybara everywhere, one even allowing a couple of us to approach within less than three metres, and caiman too although none of us tried to approach them quite so closely.  We saw one very nearly catch a monitor lizard that was right behind its tail - a good lesson in quite how quickly they can move when they sense prey.

We saw plenty of otters too, both giant river otters (always in family groups) and the solitary neotropical otters.  In the Pantanal we were surprised to come across a couple of tapir feeding in the forest, as these animals are not seen very often, especially whilst on foot.  Then later in the Amazon we saw one drinking at the water's edge, this one much better placed for us to take pictures.

There were other creatures too: an enormous tarantula, a sleeper snake, howler, spider and cappuchin monkeys, wild guinea pigs, giant cicadas that squawked when I touched them, and far too many ticks.  In the Amazon I was removing ten or so at the end of every day despite tucking my trousers into my socks and slapping on the insect repellent (which I'm thinking doesn't actually work against ticks?).  Most of us got bitten by ants, and around half the group got stung by bees...  But it was all well worth it to see such a fabulous array of birds and animals.

birding in the Pantanal and the Amazon

These hyacinth macaws were the birds I most wanted to see from all of those on the checklist for my holiday in Brazil.  I hadn't had time to do any research for this trip so was under the impression they would be difficult to find, but in fact they were quite common, and of course being big, colourful, noisy birds they were very easy to see.

I was also keen to see some of the manakins, which we also found although some species took quite a bit of searching.  Difficult to photograph with my little point-and-shoot camera as they were deep in the dark of the forest interior, but find a video on YouTube of band-tailed manakins lekking, also of red-headed manakins lekking, and you will understand why I so love these birds.  They are gorgeously-coloured little things, but what is really appealing is the way they display.  They shake their tails, they fluff up their feathers, they snap their wings open and closed, and they moonwalk along the branches.  Really amazing.

The Pantanal is a vast wetland area, and so is great for watching storks (including the jabiru) and herons; there were also sunbitterns all around the place, greater rheas, and red-legged seriemas.  Aside from the water birds, there were quite a few guans, curassows and chachalacas, surprisingly easy to see, and tinamous calling constantly (in the wooded areas) although rather more difficult to track down.  This bare-faced curassow was wandering around one of the lodges, having become habituated to people - I noticed one of its feet was damaged so maybe this was its best option.

During the two weeks we managed to see five species of owl, none of them new birds for me but I always love looking at owls.  I love the toucans and aracaris too, again no new species to add to my list but lots of pleasure from watching these beautiful birds.  In the Amazon I did add a new bird to my list that many birders never manage to see - a crested eagle.  We were at the top of the 50m high observation tower at Cristalino lodge, and the guide somehow managed to spot it perched on the top of a far away snag.  With his telescope it was very clear which bird it was, and I was thrilled to give it a tick, but if I'm honest I probably got more pleasure from watching the smaller, pretty birds such as this white-headed marsh-tyrant.

UNESCO World Heritage listed does not necessarily mean beautiful

With a need to change flights in Brasilia, I decided to add in a stopover so as to see this strange city.  Inaugurated in 1960, it was apparently built in 41 months following the decision of the Brazilian president of the time, Kubitscheck, to move the capital there.  The main buildings - that led to its UNESCO listing - were all designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who was a big fan of concrete.  It seems he liked open space, too - especially open space covered in concrete.

I guess at the time it looked bold and futuristic, but now those 'iconic' 28-storey towers just look to me like concrete tower blocks, of the kind I would expect to see in some unfortunate housing estate in Birmingham.  'Brutalist' is the term I think we use for it these days.

I suppose the Metropolitan Cathedral still has something going for it, though I'm not sure about that bell-tower.  Again, I suppose it was futuristic in 1960, but now just looks a bit odd.

This is the Justice statue in front of the Supreme Federal Court:

Just too bare, too much concrete and not enough plants.

The city is certainly not designed for pedestrians, with even more space given over to roads than to the concrete plazas.  However I spent two days tramping its streets, to see as much as I could of this truly bizarre city.  I got to go inside some of the buildings, including a rather good hour-long tour of the National Congress Palace.  The Senate Plenary Hall (the parliament), inside the down-turned dome to the right of the first photo, was quite spectacular and its design way ahead of our ancient British parliament, as each member has a designated seat, all of which are connected up, with digital sign-in and electronic voting (buttons for yes, no and abstain).

The city does do stained glass rather well though - this in one wall of the Pantheon of the Fatherland and Freedom - quite beautiful:

I also trekked the two hours along one 'wing' of the city (which was planned in the shape of a bird or aeroplane) to the Temple of Goodwill, supposedly the most visited monument in Brasilia, but in reality for a pretty minority audience (you walk around a spiral of black granite that represents the difficult path so far in your life, and reaching a small bronze plaque in the middle of the temple, you are standing under the world's largest single crystal (apparently), from where the path spirals out again but this time in white, symbolisng re-emergence on a new path...).  Underneath is a well-appointed 'Egyptian room' (with copies of ancient Egyptian paintings on the walls, a bust of Nefertiti and so on), with no explanation given as to what this has to do with the temple above. I guess the kind of people who believe that crystals have special energy fields are also quite often into Egyptology?  My favourite aspect of this place was the pair of burrowing owls sitting on the grass outside!

The Sanctuary of Dom Bosco was rather nicer, nothing strange about the place but a lovely peaceful feeling from the blue light from another nice example of the use of stained glass:

Can't say that I'm too unhappy to be moving on from here though, flying tomorrow to Cuiaba to start my holiday in the Pantanal!

other aspects of the Darién

Whilst the main reason I went to the Darién was to see the harpy eagle, I also wanted to experience some of the other wildlife there.  & the show started even before we arrived, as this beauty (a female great curassow) popped out of the trees beside the road and wandered around for a little while allowing me to take some photos.

The camp itself was surrounded by forest and there were a number of great birds around the grounds. Parrots (red-lored and mealy amazons) flew around screeching the whole time, a woodpecker was nesting in a tree beside the dining area, and the hummingbird feeders were well used.  If I woke during the night I could always hear the yelping call of at least one mottled owl, and the guide managed to find one for me with his flashlight:






There were other interesting creatures around too, including this snake which I believe to be the highly venomous fer-de-lance:

There were monkeys (howler and geoffroy's tamarin) and sloths too, millions of butterflies, little tree frogs, giant toads, pretty grasshoppers - and far too many spiders for my liking.  It's difficult to limit the photos I post here as there was such a great variety of wildlife.  How often do you see a green butterfly?

What I hadn't expected to see so much of, however, was the human story that currently has the Darién as part of its route.  Migrants are working their way up from South America and through Central America into the US.  Based around the US policy of giving asylum to Cubans who arrive by land (but not those who come by sea), but now with as many Haitians and Africans from various nations using the route too.  It has hit the news recently as Nicaragua closed their borders to these migrants, meaning thousands of them stuck in Costa Rica, and now that Costa Rica is trying to limit the numbers the problem is hitting Panama.  A parallel with the way the Balkan states put up barriers to stop Syrians passing through on their way to Germany.

You don't see these migrants in Panama City unless you happen to be in the long-distance bus terminal when they come in from the Darién and wait for a bus to take them west to Costa Rica (or at least now to the camps on the border), but in the Darién there were hundreds.  These guys were waiting in the pouring rain to cross the Chucunaque River:

They will have made their way, somehow, through the almost impassable Darién Gap that divides Panama from Colombia - an area of rainforest-clad mountains dissected by numerous rivers, best known for its Colombian guerrillas and drug smugglers and the (mythical?) FBI agents trying to stop them.  I visited parts of this area, around the fringes, but the interior is pretty inaccessible.  Further on I saw them queuing to be processed by the border police, I saw them walking along the roadsides, queuing for food being handed out by a local Catholic church, and hanging around this camp waiting to move on to Panama City:

I wanted to know more about them, to hear their stories of how they got to Colombia (where I hear many have been robbed), how they got through the Darién, and what they were hoping for at the end of this hugely difficult journey.  Unfortunately, having a full (pre-organised) schedule, I didn't get the chance of more than a few smiles and waves, and it is difficult to get reliable information here on the matter.  Locals I asked told me they were all from the Congo, or from Somalia, or Haiti, or Bangladesh ... what is certain though is that their number does include Cubans, Haitians and Africans.

Panama's national bird

There are two birds I just had to see during my time living in Panama - the resplendant quetzal, which I saw earlier this year (and I just realised that I never wrote about that, this year is so busy that a lot of things are not getting recorded here), and the national bird of Panama, the harpy eagle.  & last week I got my chance to see a harpy eagle.

We (me, the guide from the camp, and a local guide who knew how to get us to the nest) set off at 4:30am, driving to the little port of Puerto Quimba to get seats on one of the motor launches taking passengers along the river and across the bay to the capital of the province, La Palma.  After a week of clouds and rain, it was a beautiful morning - and above the river were little blue herons, white ibises and even a roseate spoonbill flying in from their overnight roosts.

La Palma was a pretty place, with little wooden houses painted in bright colours tumbling down the hillside and extending on stilts over the water.  But we were soon into another vehicle, for another 45 minutes of travel further into this remote part of the country.

We arrived a a small village and I was faced with the next mode of transport - a horse!!  When they'd told me the day before that part of the journey would have to be done on horseback, I'd warned them that I have no idea how to ride a horse, but they said it wouldn't be a problem. But now I found out that this part of the trip was going to take at least three hours (in fact it took four) - and as we set off it became clear that this was not going to be easy at all.  At first they said my horse could lead, as it knew which way to go.  Not only was I not really comfortable with that, but it meant I was the one going first through all the cobwebs - of which there were many!  Twice I ended up with a large spider on me from the web, in one case on my face... not good news for someone who is scared of spiders.

However they soon decided that my horse was not going quickly enough so someone else went ahead and took the rope attached to my horse's bridle, so as to drag it along more quickly.  The path started to get steeper, and muddier.  & steeper, and muddier.  The horses were slipping and sliding in the gloopy mud, at times up to their knees in it, as I clung on for dear life.  There were tree roots in the path too, and rocks, and it was very tough going for the horses - but clearly we wouldn't have made it up on foot.  For large parts of the route the path also had an almost vertical drop on one side, and my heart was in my mouth every time I felt my horse slip.  Eventually we got to the highest part of the path - and then had to go down the other side of the mountain, which was equally steep, muddy and slippery.  The local guide told me to hold the back of the saddle (behind me) with one hand, to help prevent me from falling head first over the horse as we slipped and slid down the mountain.  I hadn't been told what to do should my horse decide to jump over a stream rather than wade through it - I managed not to fall off but the landing was painful.

But finally we got down, and arrived in a small community, and I relaxed at the thought of being able to get off the horse.  But no!  We were only passing through this community, and there was another hour to go to get to the harpy nest.

When we arrived near the nest site, they explained to me that the bird was no longer in the nest, but that they should be able to find it somewhere nearby, perched on a tree branch as it waited for the parents to come back every couple of days with food.  I didn't dare think about them not finding the bird ... but they did find it, and quite quickly.

What a magnificent bird it was!  Worth all the stress and pain of getting there!  One of the three largest eagles in the world (depends whether you measure by length, or weight), and incredibly strong (they can catch prey - mostly sloths or monkeys - equal to their own body weight), but above all with this amazing stare.  At one point those big black eyes appeared to be looking straight at me and it was not a comfortable feeling!