Rain Forest, Second outing:
Our evening tour was on the Cristalino River; we headed upstream as it was raining in the other direction. We got some rain during the 2 ½ hours on the river, but overall we were able to complete the evening only slightly damp.
We got a good relative perspective of a Brazil nut tree that we will see close-up tomorrow. It towers above the rest of the canopy. You can see a picture above. We also saw three of the five kingfisher family, the Green Kingfisher, third smallest, the Amazon Kingfisher, second largest and the Ringed Kingfisher, the largest. The two smaller kingfisher species live inland, not along the river. They catch small fish in the rainwater pools in the jungle. These three co-habit as they catch different sizes of fish and don’t compete for food. I got pretty good at spotting the Amazon Kingfisher.
It took four tries to get a picture of this capped heron, which is mainly white with a yellow breast and white plume. Now I feel just a little of the frustration of real bird watchers and photographers.
We saw some rubber trees and the story is most interesting. Rubber used to be harvested from trees in the wild, tapping them where they were. I guess Brazil was the leader in rubber at that time as they didn’t exist anywhere else. Apparently some British people smuggled rubber seeds out of Brazil and set up rubber plantations in Malaysia which took over leadership in rubber production. We also saw Angelin trees which look very much like the African Acacia trees in the canopy. These are one of the few which drop their leaves annually. We saw a lineated woodpecker, related to the US pileated woodpecker, a crocodile like dwarf caiman. I’m sure glad that I didn’t know they were in the water before my afternoon swim in the river!
As it turned to dusk, we drifted back downstream with a spot light on the banks. Along with many bats and night hawks flying over us, we saw a ladder-tailed night jar and several other dwarf caiman, some at close range. No swimming for me tomorrow after getting a good look at those guys.
Our evening tour was on the Cristalino River; we headed upstream as it was raining in the other direction. We got some rain during the 2 ½ hours on the river, but overall we were able to complete the evening only slightly damp.
We got a good relative perspective of a Brazil nut tree that we will see close-up tomorrow. It towers above the rest of the canopy. You can see a picture above. We also saw three of the five kingfisher family, the Green Kingfisher, third smallest, the Amazon Kingfisher, second largest and the Ringed Kingfisher, the largest. The two smaller kingfisher species live inland, not along the river. They catch small fish in the rainwater pools in the jungle. These three co-habit as they catch different sizes of fish and don’t compete for food. I got pretty good at spotting the Amazon Kingfisher.
It took four tries to get a picture of this capped heron, which is mainly white with a yellow breast and white plume. Now I feel just a little of the frustration of real bird watchers and photographers.
We saw some rubber trees and the story is most interesting. Rubber used to be harvested from trees in the wild, tapping them where they were. I guess Brazil was the leader in rubber at that time as they didn’t exist anywhere else. Apparently some British people smuggled rubber seeds out of Brazil and set up rubber plantations in Malaysia which took over leadership in rubber production. We also saw Angelin trees which look very much like the African Acacia trees in the canopy. These are one of the few which drop their leaves annually. We saw a lineated woodpecker, related to the US pileated woodpecker, a crocodile like dwarf caiman. I’m sure glad that I didn’t know they were in the water before my afternoon swim in the river!
As it turned to dusk, we drifted back downstream with a spot light on the banks. Along with many bats and night hawks flying over us, we saw a ladder-tailed night jar and several other dwarf caiman, some at close range. No swimming for me tomorrow after getting a good look at those guys.
I elbow Wayne in the ribs, point up and tell him to look at the stars (we'd been spending all this time looking at the river banks). The stars out here are brilliant. With no light pollution, we can see tons of them. Of course, being in the southern hemisphere, we see the Southern Cross standing out among many others.
This is a fascinating ecosystem. Just before dinner I was reading about it: In a 250 acre section of the Amazon there are over 270 species of birds living together. Overall, the Amazon has over 1300 species and Brazil has 1650 species. Compare that to all of North America which has about 800 species. These birds and the other wildlife we have seen are absolutely incredible.
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