Pantanal: Creatures and Landscapes

While the jaguars were a major highlight of our June trip to the Pantanal, the beautiful landscape, many other animals, and spending time with our friend/guide Ailton Lara contributed to making this a fantastic experience. 

Capybara (above) and Paraguayan caiman (below) abound in the Pantanal and are a large part of the jaguars' diet. The big family groups of capybara are adorable; we never got tired of seeing them.

  

It's been a while since we got to write about birds. So many exciting species in the Pantanal! Here are a few that we particularly liked. 

Burrowing owl on fencepost. We also got to
see a pair of great horned owls later in the trip.

Social grooming: guira cuckoos. We're suckers for big, social groups of birds.

And speaking of social grooming...hyacinth macaws! The world's largest (flying) parrot. And cutest?

Among the mammals we saw were red brocket and marsh deer, crab-eating fox, southern tamandua (anteater), and these giant river otters, snacking on delicious fish (catfish and piranha).

We felt really lucky to have seen so much wildlife. At the beginning of the trip, we saw a tapir (our favorite--more on those to come in our upcoming entry on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica). This one was wallowing chest-deep in broad daylight, but when we slowed to look at it, took off too quickly for a photo. On our way back to Cuiaba, we got a few more surprises. An ocelot--the first we've seen in the wild--ran across the road in front of us (also too rapidly for pictures). What a thrill. There was just one more animal we'd been craving a glimpse of, but it seemed like too much to hope for, given its rarity in this part of the Pantanal. We stopped at dusk by a field for some landscape photos. A few local people were passing, and we heard them say two magic words to our driver: "tamandua bandera." Lo and behold, there it was:

 The giant anteater. Every bit as unusual, shaggy, and fantastic as it looks, and more so. 

Above is a view of the Transpantaneira, the dirt highway through the northern Pantanal, with Ailton and Mike sitting on one of the many wooden bridges over the seasonally flooded land. The water levels were on their way down during our visit, but a high percentage of the land was still inundated.

Below, land that was decimated by a fire started by a rancher attempting to clear part of his land several years ago. It grew out of control, as fires often do, and blazed into the park, leaving few trees standing, and fewer living. 

Navigating through lillies at the mouth of the San Pedrinho River, where we saw the giant otters
and the pair of jaguars.

Us with Ailton. We highly recommend trips to the Pantanal with him and his company.

Jaguars of the Pantanal

What an excellent trip to the Pantanal we just had. Thank you all for your sound advice encouraging us to go. We'll need to post a few entries about it because there were *so many animals*--we'll start with some of the best. While staying at the Pantanal Jaguar Camp in Porto Jofre, Brazil, on a tour with our friend/guide Ailton Lara, we were able to see not one, but 4.5 jaguars in five days.

This male jaguar was our first and most frequently seen (on three days for us). Our first look at him was through some foliage, but he soon came out onto the riverbank to relax.

We felt extremely privileged to spend time observing him. Eventually he wandered into the foliage and we headed up the river to look for more wildlife. 

On a small, beautiful river, we saw a female jaguar sunning herself on a bank. She got up and walked along the forest edge, and we then saw a second head pop up: her mate! Ailton explained to us that when jaguars are breeding, they spend about a week, maybe a little more, together, mating, resting, and not much else. 

After laying around for a while, the female would get playful and roll over on her back with purring/growling. Then, she'd get up and walk by the male, and they'd kind of try to bite each other. He'd get the message and follow--and then it was all over in about 10 seconds, with some yowling, swiping of paws and biting. He would jump away and she'd roll over onto her back or side again, and then they'd both rest for a while. This happened at least three times while we watched...and we heard more after they went deeper into the forest. Here are a few close-ups of the female.

Over the next few days, we saw the lone male again, along with a brief sighting of another male jaguar--this one was blind in one eye. Photos of him didn't turn out so well. And then, there was our .5 jaguar the morning we were leaving: it was sitting on a river bank just a short boat trip from the camp. Ailton spotted it, and Mike was able to catch a glimpse of it before it headed for the forest, but only for a brief moment. No photos of that one. Instead, here are a few more of the male we'd first seen.

Highly recommended for anyone who likes seeing rare wild cats in their natural habitat. Next post: other fantastic wildlife from our trip, including the one we'd wanted to see about as much as the jaguar...