The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Thirty-Two

(To see these photos at their best, click on one.   That will bring up a film strip that you can easily scroll through.)

Chapter Thirty-Two

The No-Go Area

 

 

Where words are restrained,

the eyes often talk a great deal.

—Samuel Underwood

 

 

 

The scant light from the kitchen windows and work area at the rear of Araras lodge provide just enough illumination as we follow Octavio to the wooden rail fence that separates the guest areas from the NO GO area.  

The light fades away as we reach the rail.  He turns on the broad-beam light that he uses to spotlight animals for night photography, aims it downward into the dark, and moves it slowly to the left.

This is a lousy cell phone photo taken at night obviously.   I haven't figured out how 

to turn off the phone's light to take a night picture.   Plus, the white reflections represent only a small portion of the eyes we saw.

 

The white reflections of dozens of caimans’ eyes are startling to behold!   How can so many occupy one pond.  I’m not sure if it is really a pond, or a backwater of the nearby river.   Whatever, there are far too many caimans there for my comfort.

 

I think about sleeping just yards away from them and am a little unsettled by the thought.   I’m glad I’m on the opposite side of the room wing.  Good reason to not go out of the room at night.

 

I sleep in the next morning, having missed the notice that we would gather in an outdoor pavilion for a special breakfast.   Nonetheless, I am able to gather up enough food from the trays as the staff clears the area.

 

Then, I grab my camera and head for the pond we visited last night, the one with all the critters.   I am in search of a specific bird—the sunbittern.

 

I walk up to the rail and am a bit disappointed about a fog lying over the water, although I do take a shot of a caiman that I like.

Black-collared hawk

 

We are leaving this morning as it’s our last day of the trip, so I am limited in time to find that bird.

Your friendly, smiling caiman

 

Before  the mist evaporates,  I am astounded at the number of white storks!

The stork tree

 

I take a few shots of them, as well as some other birds, and then I see a bird fly across the water toward me and land about ten yards away.  It’s my prey:   a non-descript and subdued-colored bird with a narrow head and long legs that’s foraging in the mud on the shore.   Which is surprising because caimans are one of its main predators.

 

I take some shots and wait for it to fly.

 

When it does, magic happens!  

 

 

The pattern on the wings and back is astonishing.  From nondescript to incredible with the opening of the wings.

 

That pattern has a practical use.   It will appear to any predator as a large and threatening  face, with large eyes much like some moths and butterflies have coloration on their spread wings to mimic large eyes and scare off predators.

 

 

At length, it’s time to load up the van and begin a two to three hour drive in the Transpantanaria Highway to the border of the Pantanal.   We have an aealy afternoon flight from Cuiaba to Sao Paulo where my my flight homeward is scheduled for late tonight.

 

I think about what a great trip this has been and I am reluctant to leave.

 

But, if I thought the adventures were over, I was highly mistaken!!!

 

 

 

 

Rufous hornero

Monk parakeets

Monk parakeets

Wattled jacana juvenile

Wattled jacana adult

Green ibis

Plumbeous heron

 

 

 

The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Thirty-0ne

 

Chapter Thirty-One

Side Effects

 

 

“You have to taste a culture to understand it.”

—Deborah Cater

 

 

 

If you’ve been served a meal on an airliner, then you’ll understand what I’m talking about.  You are handed a teensy tray with all the food items placed just so and everything fits nicely.

 

Fits, that is, until you begin unwrapping and taking the lids off the individual servings.   Then there is no place on the postage stamp-sized tray to put all that debris.

 

So when I was on the long flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Sáo Paulo, Brazil, I found myself with a serving of white rice in my left hand and another of cooked brown beans in my right hand.   There was only one empty spot on the tray.

Araras Eco Lodge

 

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” it’s said and in a moment of sheer genius, I dump the beans on top of the rice.   It's a good combination.

 

After a few days in Brazil, I discover I wasn’t such a smarty because rice with beans in a delicious, thick, soupy broth is a staple in the Brazilian diet.   Every lunch and dinner buffet always has a large container of rice and a large container of beans.

 

I indulged.   Frequently.

UFO

 

Well, you know what happens when you eat beans.   Eventually, they make their presence known in the form of gas, which is expelled from the body. 

That’s understandable, but does it have to trumpet its escape into the air so everyone knows you’ve been eating beans?

Our table in the lodge

 

I discovered that when I picked up my eight-pound camera/lens combination, I have to clench almost every muscle in my body to hold it up and focus without shaking.   Clenching those abdominal muscles results in that certain inevitable side effect.

I often found myself apologizing, excusing myself, or just ignoring it and hoping they think someone else did it.

 

I stopped eating rice and beans for a while but at Araras Eco Lodge, our last lodge on this trip, I had a very small serving.

 

***

 

 

Shelly comes to get me the next day and says she’s found an orange-backed troupial, a particularly colorful bird that I’d been hoping to see.   It isn’t far away and we maneuver under a large tree to catch the bird in an open spot through the leaves and branches.  Shelly is standing behind and off to one side of me.

 

I lift that heavy camera almost straight up and clench.

Juvenile wattled jacana

 

The bean gas emits a loooooong, high-pitched escaping squeal and Shelly starts laughing.   So do I.   Getting an in-focus shot under these circumstances is a miracle, but I get the shot.

Orange-backed troupial

 

We go back to our rooms and later I send Shelly a message:  

 

“I am thinking about changing the name of my blog to “The Phlatulent Photographer.”

 

 

Capybara, the rodents everybody loves.

 

 

The 2023 Brazil Journals, Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Goodness, Gracious, Great Snakes Alive!

Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be poisonous.

--Chanakya

Virginia and I are watching a drama play out at the water fountain when Shelly comes striding toward us yelling, "I HAVE A SNAKE IN MY BATHROOM!!!"  

Deja Vu all over again.   The first time it was a frog.

She says she heard noises coming from the bathroom and when she opened the door, there was a long snake on her bathroom counter, knocking her things onto the floor.

Virginia and I grab our cameras and run to Shelly's room to see the snake.  While we angle for the best shooting spot, Shelly returns with a woman from the lodge who is holding a broom.

Darned if there isn't a snake in Shelly's bathroom!   Shelly gets all the best roommates.

"Get out of the bathroom and let her in," Shelly commands anxiously.

This snake cantilevered its body vertically trying to reach the window and escape before the lady with broom urged it to hasten its journey.

"No way, Shelly.   Photos come first," I reply laughingly.   "Photos or it didn't happen."

Finally we let the lady with the broom into the small area and she coaxes it out the open window, which is screened but the screen has been pulled away from the bottom corner.

It's a parrot snake, I say, just like the one Virginia and I were watching at the water fountain in front of  the lodge.   And that was a drama unfolding.

The water fountain in front of the lodge.

The white blobs are water droplets.   That bulge at right might be the frog.

This snake has swallowed a frog and there was a large bulge in the snake's abdomen.

You can actually see the bulk of the frog inside the snake.  The snake positioned itself  with water is running on the frog bulge, which I found fascinating.   Look how long it is.   My guess is five feet or so.

Octavio assures us it is only mildly venomous.   Which means, I tell him jokingly,  that you'll get sick and hope you die, but won't.

This is a very slender snake.

Such a pretty color.

Note how it uses its body to create a bridge and then comes back upon itself.

I find it uttering interesting, coming from a place where there are no snakes in the wild (just bears and moose), how snakes can use their own bodies to bridge an open space such as the snake is doing here.  

SO, I did some research and after finally finding the right keywords, found this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8uubvO4Ids

Parrot snakes can attain a length of 68 inches, with 23 inches being its tail.

There was an afternoon vehicle excursion scheduled for the afternoon, but this happened:

Right at the end I swing my phone up and you get a glimpse of Lala the macaw staying out of the rain.

I went to my room.   This was going to last a while.

I was still trying to figure out if I had a cold or something else.   I had woken during the night with congestion.   Ah, it's a cold, I thought.   I took an anti-histamine and that was the last of the congestion.  No energy, achy body, yes.   But no congestion.

After a while, I looked out.   Still raining.   I went to tell the group I was going to skip the game drive.

Well, what better way to drive away the snake heebie-jeebies than chocolate?

Some more photos:

Grayish Baywing

Kiskadee

Hmmm.   Maybe a palm tanager

Same as above

Same as above