Cover

Photo c Pierre Henkart

Pantanal

The Pantanal is one of the world’s great natural wonders, an immense landlocked river delta in the heart of South America, encompassing vast areas of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. It looks like an African savannah in the peak of the dry season (May to October), or an immense lake during a large part of the year. But the Pantanal is also a paradise for bird and animal watching. In the dry season, the landscape is covered with beautiful yellow, lilac, and pink blossoming trees and the nights get cold.

The Pantanal affords the richest wildlife viewing in the Americas. It's much easier to see the animals here than it is in the Amazon because they are more out in the open, as opposed to being hidden amongst the trees. In the dry season, the region presents small lakes, many of which are perennial, which constitute the food source for a great variety of animals including migratory birds from various parts of the planet. Approximately 700 species of birds; 100 of mammals; 80 of reptiles; 240 of fish, as well as a great number of invertebrates still not classified, constitute the richest variety of fauna to be found in the Americas.

The region is an important migratory bird stopover point and wintering ground used by birds from three major migratory flyways. These bring ospreys from Arctic latitudes far to the north, wood storks from the pampas to the south, and flycatchers from the Andes to the west.  Migratory birds such as wood stork and spoonbill start nesting. The Pantanal is one of the planet’s most diverse avian communities, with 656 species of birds identified so far. 

We were in the northern Pantanal, sort of like being on the north side of the Grand Canyon.

July 31-Aug 1--Tulsa, OK, USA to Cuiabá, Brazil

Saturday, July 31 — August 1, 2015
Tulsa, OK, USA to Cuiabá, Brazil

I left from Tulsa Airport on Delta Airlines Friday, July 31st for a chain of flights: Tulsa to Atlanta, Atlanta to Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo to Cuiabá (Quee-a-bah), Brazil.  

I had about a 3-hour layover in Atlanta, so I bought The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest in the airport bookstore, intending to return it for a nice refund when I returned. However, most nights I was too exhausted to read it, so I am reading it now that I am home. It is a good, well-written book, the third in this series, which began  with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

A thunderstorm moved into the Atlanta area. When we finally boarded the flight—an hour late—we sat delayed on the runway for another 2.5 hours! I was a little worried about making my Sao Paulo connection to Cuiabá, but all turned out well.

On the long flight to Sao Paulo, I was seated in the center 3-seat row on the left aisle. A mother seated in the center seat, asked me if I would consider changing with her son so that she and her 9-year-old son, who was in the center seat in front of us, could be together. I hated to be hard-hearted, but I declined. I could not sit cramped in the center for the 9-hour, 44-minute flight. It was bad enough sitting on the aisle. Her husband and daughter sat several rows behind us.

Turned out this woman was from a German-speaking community in Argentina. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was the child of a Nazi War criminal. She said that there were “a lot of them [Germans]” who had their own German-speaking community there.

I envied those in first and business class who had bed seats and even little comforters to make them comfortable. My feet and legs screamed throughout the flight. My compression hose worked fine but were doing their job too well, so I took them off about three-quarters through the flight.  Arrived in Sao Paulo with swollen ankles, of course.

There was a charging port and small TV/computer screen in front of each passenger. However, the plane roar was so loud that I couldn’t hear the movie, so instead played games, worked crossword puzzles, and read before trying to sleep.

When, in Sao Paulo, I picked up my bag to send it on to Cuiabá, it was soaking wet. They must have left it outside while we waited for the storm to subside in Atlanta. Fortunately I had packed all but my pj’s in plastic bags. Dried the pj’s at the Cerrado Park Hotel, not a difficult task as the AC quit each time I left the room, and it was tropically hot outside..

In Sao Paulo I met Heini and Erkki Holopainen, a Finnish couple who were in our Field Guides birding group. We were on the same flight to Cuiabá, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso and the site of our tour’s start. Known as the “Southern gate to the Amazon,” Cuiabá has a hot, humid, tropical climate. Heine and I had corresponded via email and were looking for each other. We flew GOL to Cuiabá and then Erkki called the Cerrado Park Hotel, which sent a shuttle to the airport to pick us up. Erkki and Heine had been traveling from Finland for 2+ days and were exhausted. When we reached the hotel, we ordered Chinese delivered to their room. Heini is a strict vegetarian so a Chinese fish entrée suited her (and me) well. I had exchanged only a $20-bill and most of it went to that meal . . . that I could have done without. 

We ate our meals in our separate rooms—which happened to be next door to each other. Then I got  ready to catch up on my sleep, but Jan Huebner called. Jan was another single-woman participant from Orlando, FL. She was in the hotel too, but all the rest of the party had been stranded in Miami and would not be able to make it to Brazil until 10:30 am the next day. Jan had “hotel fever” and knew Marcelo Padua, our guide, so called him and arranged for him to take the two of us—the Holopainen’s were too exhausted—on a birding tour of Mae Bonifacia Park, a forest park within the city limits.

We had barely entered a wooded park trail, when a family of black-tailed marmosets with fleshy pink noses came down to investigate Marcelo’s bird calls (see below).

In the park we saw Little Woodpecker (1), Pearly-vented Tody Tyrant (2), Short-crested Flycatcher (3), Grayish Saltator (4), Bananaquit (5), Bare Faced Ibis (6), Green Ibis (7), Common Pauraque (8), Cattle Egrets, Bare-faced Curassow (9), Ruddy Ground Doves (10), Rock Doves, Great Kiskadee. We heard several other species and tried to call in and track down a Pheasant Cuckoo (11), a shy, seldom seen species, but to no avail.  I included two views of the Greyish Saltator because later on the tour I saw one from behind just as shown in 4b and described it as a bird that looked something like a robin with an eye-ring. Well?

Aug 2--Cuiabá to Sao Jose do Rio Claro

Sunday, August 2, 2015
Cuiabá to Sao Jose do Rio Claro

The Festival of San Cristo parade passed right under my window at 8:45 am—a long procession of cars and trucks honking their horns and igniting firecrackers, plus someone with a loudspeaker. Despite this distraction, I re-packed and organized after breakfast and then met Marcelo, Jan, Heini & Erkki in the lobby at 10:30 am.

Marcelo had engaged a bus and a driver he knew and liked (Luis) and we loaded our luggage and then were off to the airport to gather the rest of the group. Once the rest of the group — weary from their overnight flights — were aboard, we drove a short distance to a place where one filled one’s plate at a buffet, and then it was weighed to determine its price. We all did this and our plates were charged to Field Guides. Marcello ordered a variety of juices to be served at our long table. I liked the passion fruit juice best. Though the restaurant was noisy we did our best to get acquainted. The food was good.

After lunch, we were off to Sao Jose do Rio Claro and our lodge, Garden of the Amazon, a 5-hour drive. On the way we birded, stopped a couple of times for rest stops, and crossed the Chapada dos Guimarães mountains. The terrain on either side of the mountains was flat to rolling and contained vast agricultural fields as far as the eye could see of cotton, sunflowers, sugarcane, corn, beans, and teak tree plantations. We also passed lime mines, which white dust from a distance looked like smoke. The terrain was very dry, the dirt Oklahoma red.

On the way we saw many birds: Turkey, Black, and Greater Yellow-headed Vultures; Rheas (1); Smooth-billed Ani (2); Quira Cuckoo (3)—with their punk “hairdos” these became one of my favorite birds; Southern Lapwings (4); Roadside  and White-tailed Hawks; Wood Storks (5); Eared and Ruddy Ground Doves; Red-winged Tinamou (6); Southern Caracara (7) to name a few. Marcelo ran into the field to flush the tinamou so that we could see its rusty wings. We also saw several Burrowing Owls (8). The owls make their own burrows or take one made by an armadillo. They stand on the ground or on fence posts or corn stalks in this area with few perches.

At one of our stops Marcello bought pineapples displayed in an artful wagon (below) for the people who run Garden of the Amazon lodge where we would stay.

We arrived at Garden of the Amazon, a little family-run lodge that sits at the ecotone between the Cerrado and Amazon, at about 5:30.  There were six adjoining cabin-type rooms with balconies looking out over the ponds and toward the river. Our room was a large family room with a king bed on the balcony side and two twin beds on the other side of the room. Kathy Burkhart, from Miami, my roommate, immediately claimed one of the single beds and assigned me the king. Kathy’s dim bedside lamp did not work but after Marcelo came and brought a new bedside lamp and taught us how to operate the swamp cooler, we were set.

I got a bit more acquainted with Kathy. I found that she is a used book dealer whose common-law husband, Wally, had died the year before. She had been on many birding tours with this company and others. And, most pointedly, all of her previous roommates had been “horrible, one rummaging in her bags [as I was doing when she told me this] zipping and unzipping too much and using too much toilet paper.” Hmm. We got along okay, but quite cordially as I refused to be baited by her comments. She was master of the room key, determined who got what bed and who showered first, etc. I went along.

As soon as we got settled in the room we walked to the main building for dinner. A large family of Capybaras—oldsters, parents, and children—grazed the lawn beside the open dining area as we ate. Also near the dining area was a Muscovy Duck in a soft feathery nest, several other wild Muscovies in the ponds, and quite a few Guineafowl keeping the lawn free of ticks and other insects.

Capybaras (large rodents) up from the river and dining on the lawn grasses near the dining area. It was dusk so my cell phone caught their eyeshine. They are prolific breeders so there are generally several babies in the mix.

Dinner was a buffet of fish, meat, veggies, salad fixings, fruit, and desserts, all very nicely presented. Also the various types of juice freshly squeezed. I tried them all but liked the passion fruit best so stuck to it, though we could order alcoholic drinks, as well. Think I did have a beer that first night.

Aug 3--Garden of the Amazon

Monday, August 3, 2015
Garden of the Amazon

I was awake at 1:10 am with diarrhea. After 5 am breakfast, I consulted with Marcelo. We both suspected it was the malaria med I was taking. Marcelo indirectly suggested that I stop the med, telling all of us that there was no malaria in the areas we would bird on this tour. (I did stop taking the malaria med and all was fine for the rest of the tour.) There were chiggers, ticks, gnats, ants, and small biting flies but I saw nary a mosquito, even in the swamps and rivers. Strange but nice.

With the uncertainty of another bout, I ate a very cautious breakfast and skipped the boat tour to an oxbow lake where all were going to see the ultra-rare and only recently rediscovered Cone-billed Tanager. Marcello and a birding friend had actually re-discovered the bird in this oxbow lake several years previously.

After all left, I went back to bed and slept until 8:30. Then I hiked to the river and along trails and boardwalks to the beautiful spring-fed swimming area. The water was so clear that the pool appeared empty and the photos I took of the fish look like they are swimming in the reflected trees.

Top left--view from our room balcony; middle, clear water and fish in the ponds; bottom the spring fed swimming area. It was about four feet deep and really not a pool but cement sides that channeled the spring water into and out of the bathing area

Rio Claro--looking upriver and down

 

                            

When the group got back, they were excited to have seen the cone-billed tanager. I told of my sightings: Silver-beaked Tanager (1), Rufous-tailed Jacamar (2), White-winged Swallows,  Palm Tanagers (3), Ruddy Ground Doves, Yellow-crowned Parrots (4) —small group in a tree near my balcony; Red-shouldered Macaws (5), and a Giant Cowbird. Photos of same below, pulled from the Internet.

On my solitary walk, I also came across a Tegu—a large lizard that walks high on its legs like a Komodo Dragon. It is about 2-feet long. I jumped in surprise when it rattled the leaves at the side of the trail. Also came across a large capybara sunning on the river bank. I tried to get close for a pic but it saw me and lumbered off with a loud grunt.

Great pic of capybaras (Internet)

After the group got back, we went to lunch and then had siesta until 2:30 in the worst heat of the day. This pattern would be repeated throughout the trip. It is cool in the morning until about 9 am and cools down rapidly in the evening after dusk, but when the sun is directly overhead, it is extremely and relentlessly HOT. My water bottle and bandanas saw a lot of action, and I would have to shower and change clothes mid-day and early evening before dinner. Even my binocs became so hot that I had to be careful about touching them to my eyes.

From 2:30 until 6:30 we birded what we later termed “the crunchy trail,” this because the dry leaf litter was so loud beneath our feet. Marcelo has a phenomenal ear and aural memory and called in a lot of species. In this four-hour period we birded less than 1-mile of trail! It was very hot and tiring with all the silent, unmoving stops while Marcelo called in or recorded a bird; as well as the neck-breaking, eye-wearying binocular work to spot the bird in the high treetops and dense foliage.

Some of the birds spotted on this hike included Swallow-tailed Kite; Blue Ground Dove, several species of swifts, including the Fork-tailed Palm Swift (1); Swallow-winged Puffbird (2); Little and Red-stained Woodpeckers; White-throated and Channel-billed Toucans (3,4); Blue-headed Parrot; White-eyed Antwren (5); Amazonian Antshrike, Dot-winged Antwren(6); Spix’s Warbling Antbird (7); Elegant Woodcreeper (8); Rufous-rumped Foliage-Gleaner; Short-tailed Pygmy Tyrant; Small-billed Eleana; Snow-capped Manakin (9), Wing-barred Piprites; Buff-breasted Wren; several tanagers, including Masked Tanager (10), Blue-necked Tanager (11) and Turquoise Tanager(12); Black-faced Dacnis and Yellow-bellied Dacnis (13); Rufous-bellied Euphonia (14). I’ve included pix below of some of the more colorful or unusual new sightings.

After dinner — fish, salad, potatoes, no dessert as it was strawberry ice cream and I am lactose intolerant—we sat in the outdoor eating area, watched the Capybaras and the Muscovy nest, and completed our sightings list for the past two days. In the midst of this, there was a hubbub. One of the staff had seen a Brazilian Tapir near the office. We all got a good look at this endangered animal as it took the dirt road—the path of least resistance—and then disappeared over a rise. The next morning we found this odd animal’s odd footprints.

Brazilian Tapir spotted right at the Garden of Amazon. All four species of tapir are endangered. The tapir has a prehensile snout with which it can grasp things. It has 4 toes on its hind feet and 3 on its front feet.

Aug 4--Garden of the Amazon

Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Garden of the Amazon

Passion flower beside the trail

After a 5:00 am breakfast this morning, we birded a trail around fish ponds and a small lake. Actually it was the other end of  “crunchy trail” and began behind Kathy’s and my room. We had Jonathan with us, as well as Marcelo. Jonathan was learning his birds and working in the dining area of the lodge. He and Luis were in charge of the spotting scope.

There were several birds in the trees or at the edges of the fish ponds in this area. Marcelo used my cell phone to digiscope photos of a Cocoi Heron (1), a Red-throated Piping Guan (2), and a Speckled Chachalaca (3).

We were out in the open by the fish ponds but tried to stick to the shade on the trail. Nonetheless, it was again very hot and tiring to be on one’s feet, stalking the birds for 4 hours.

One bird that we spotted made the morning well worthwhile, however. This was an Ornate Hawk Eagle. I will never forget my first sighting of one. I was on an Earthwatch Expedition in Ecuador’s Cloud Forest north of Guayaquil. I’d gone to the hummingbird research spot at the top of the mountain by myself and lay down on some banana leaves for a short nap and to await the others who were down the mountain eating lunch. I woke from the nap when I heard flapping wings. I opened my eyes to see an Ornate Hawk Eagle looking down at me from a small cecropia tree. Its eyes were piercing and yellow. It’s head feathers were blowing in the wind. Only when the group came up did I learn that this was an Ornate Hawk Eagle.

Internet photo of the gorgeous Ornate Hawk Eagle; this is one time when a bird's name is understatement. Why the bird in this photo has white feet, I have no clue. OHE have bright yellow feet.

After lunch, instead of catching a few zzz’s during the usual midday siesta, I changed into my bathing suit and went to the beautiful spring-fed pool for a dip. Heini came to the pool, too, and we both swam and cooled off in this lovely area.

In the afternoon, we went boat birding on the Rio Claro and headed for the oxbow lake where the Cone-billed Tanagers hung out. This was the first time on the river for me because I had missed the first birding morning at Garden of the Amazon. We took two metal boats, one piloted by the man who owned Garden of the Amazon (cannot now remember his name). We went miles upstream and then tied the two boats together and drifted leisurely downriver looking for birds. During this period, the boats were steered only by small electric motors in their prows. The owner sat on a folding chair in the front of my boat.

At one point, the boats were untied and we nosed into a small gap in the river bank. Marcello pulled our boat through the gap, pushing off the bank with his feet and grabbing small trees to pull us through. We emerged in a small oxbow lake, home of the Cone-billed Tanager. I was the only one of the group who had never seen one . . . and remained that way because we failed to call one into view.

Today we saw the following birds, plus many others: Buff-necked Ibis; Back-throated Mango hummingbird (1); every one of the jacamars—Brown Jacamar (2), Blue-cheeked Jacamar (3), Bronzy Jacamar (4) and Rufous tailed Jacamar (5); Black-fronted Nunbird and White-fronted Nunbird; Black-girdled Barbet (p. 13), Barred Forest Falcon (6), Aplomado Falcon (7); Yellow-chevroned Parrot; Red bellied Macaw (8); Barred Antshrike;  White-flanked Antwren; Chestnut-tailed Antbird; Forest Elanea; Yellow-margined Flycatcher; Rusty-margined Flycatcher, Pompador Cotinga  [gotta love the names], (9), Red-headed Manakin (10); White-browed Purpletuft (11); Black-bridled Barbet (12); Black-faced Dacnis, Blue Dacnis; Yellow-backed Tanager (13);  and Rose-throated Becard (14). I have pulled pix of some of these birds from the Internet. See below:


It gets dark at this latitude at about 5:30. The guys driving the boats are so familiar with the river, however, that they raced each other for miles in the absolute dark, taking the curves at a heart-stopping tilt and somehow avoiding caiman, capybara, snags, sandbars, and running ashore. I decided that they were following the tops of the trees which were dimly visible against the sky, but Marcello told us that they simply know every twist, turn, and twig in the river, having grown up on it. It was scary though, because any moment I expected them to take a bend at a tilt and then crash us into a bank because the bend was actually 25 feet farther on. My mind fixed on a picture of the boat standing on its nose in the bank and myself flying far into the forest.

Also, Marcello was sitting behind Jan and me who were in the front of the boat. He had a spotlight and was using it along both sides of the river to pick up owl or potoo or jaguar eyeshine. The light attracted gnats and allowed us to see Bulldog (fishing) Bats (left). Because of the speed and wind, Jan and I had our heads down and I had my bandanna over my face. I whispered to Jan that when we got back to the dock we would look like the front grill of a car, covered with bugs. Marcello’s keen hearing picked this up over the motor roar and he began turning the light off and on, which gave us a bit of a break.

Aug 5--Garden of the Amazon

Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Garden of the Amazon

This is to be our last full day at Garden of the Amazon. Tomorrow we will walk up the exit dirt road for a mile or so birding in the early morning after breakfast, and then the bus will pick us up and we will head south, back through Cuiabá and then farther south to Posada Piuval in the northern Panatanal for the night. But I get ahead of myself.

Marcelo at the  beginning of Crunchy Trail; a tree that grows in columns that look like vines--the dark blob toward the top of the picture is a termite nest--very common sight on the trees; right: a tree with a couple of rooted vines hanging from it. This is the neck-breaking angle straight up that we must look sometimes, also.

This morning we enjoyed a 5:30 breakfast, and then birded crunchy trail again. We saw a Long-billed Gnat Wren (1) and a Black-bellied Cuckoo (2) among other species.
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After lunch this day we drove to a lake at the beginning of the exit road.
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Here we saw Blue-and-yellow Macaws (1) endangered Hyacinth Macaws (2); Brazilian Teal; White Woodpeckers (3), a Yellow-tufted  Woodpecker (4), a Red-stained Woodpecker (5), and a Point-tailed Palmcreeper, among others. There was an Osprey at this lake also. Kind of nice to see the home birds. 




The macaws perched in a nearby tree affording good shots, both macaw photos above by Pierre Henkart. The Point-tailed Palmcreeper, however, was halfway across the lake in a palm tree, but Marcello managed to digiscope it for me. Though the bird was too far away for a good pic, I inserted both an internet photo and my digiscoped photo below to show the limitations of a digiscoped cell iphone photo.
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The digiscoped White Woodpeckers to the left, their tongues comically seen as they scold. They were reacting to Marcelo's pygmy owl call I think. To the right the digiscoped Point-tailed Palmcreeper. The bird was quite a distance away.

It was dusk when we finished birding at the lake. Marcello asked for volunteers to owl the sides of the road and walk back to the lodge with him. He had only two takers. The rest of us were exhausted. Dinner was served when the owlers got back at 8 pm this night. The owlers had heard a screech owl and one other owl but had seen none.