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.