Attractive fruits

If you want to attract birds into your garden, just plant suitable fruit trees, offer them water, wait a little bit and enjoy theses wonderful creatures. In these two pictures we see a crested-oropendola (Japu, Psarocolius decumanus) and a white-woodpecker (Birro, Melanerpes candidus), both feeding on the same jackfruit (jaca, Artocarpus heterophyllus).

Crested-oropendola
White-woodpecker


Top of the food chain

This is a dominant male jaguar, the top predator of the local food chain. Recently we spotted him very relaxed lying along the shores of the Rio Negro.
Within our research & conservation project "Onças do Rio Negro", we have identified 8 individuals. The goal of this study involves the understanding and monitoring of jaguar ecology, demography, population dynamics and it's relation with human activities such as cattle ranching and tourism in a long-term perspective.

Male Jaguar Pantanal Fazenda Barranco Alto

Anteater

Fazenda Barranco Alto has very large protected areas and a highly varied habitat composition, from dense forests to wide open grasslands. This is one of the reasons why giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla, tamanduá-bandeira) are common around here. Nevertheless, they might be hiding from our sightings in the vegetation during the days of the southern summer.
Recent population counts by Moecklinghoff have estimated the population on Fazenda Barranco Alto being bigger than 60 animals.
On this picture you see a beautiful female with her young on the back that she will carry for 6 months.


Jibóia

These days we had an unexpected surprise. Suddenly, a Boa constrictor (Boa constrictor amarali, jibóia) fell off a tree just next to one of us. The snake was holding on a Chaco Chachalaca (Ortalis canicollis, Aracuã), which it had killed by constriction up in the tree. The bird was already 20 cm down the snake's throat.
The same way we heard the blunt noise of the snake hitting the ground, a fox also did and came to inspect and challenged the snake. At this point snakes are completely vulnerable because they've got their mouth full! Seeing no alternative, the snake had to regurgitate the bird and then hiss to the fox ...

The forked tongue is used to smell.

Just regurgitated the bird.

Wading on stilts

The stilts (Himantopus sp., pernilongo) are locally abundant shorebirds in the southern Pantanal. They congregate specially around salt lakes, so called salinas. Note their extremely long pink legs, perfectly adapted to wading in muddy waters.
And talking about birds, here's our list with 402 species: http://taxeus.com.br/lista/192 . The last inclusions were the cliff flycatcher (Hirundinea ferruginea, gibão-de-couro) and the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus, falcão-peregrino).



Stilts and a yellowlegs

Stilts at sunsetwww.FazendaBarrancoalto.com.br


Pink trees

This year we had another strong and wide-range blossoming of the pink trumpet trees (Piúvas, Tabebuia impetiginosa). The flowers are an important part of the local wildlife's diet. Mammals like howler-monkeys and brocket deers , birds like guans and parakeets just love the bitter taste.

Aerial view of "Invernada 3"
blue-crowned parakeet (Aratinga acuticaudata)


Cliffs ?!

We're very excited to add the cliff flycatcher (Hirundinea ferruginea, gibão-de-couro) to our list (http://taxeus.com.br/impressaolista/192). It's bird species number 401 ! The flycatcher was first sighted by William de Jong, a dutch biologist.
The only question is; where are the cliffs ?!

And by the way, Birdlife International has considered this area one of the Important Bird Areas (IBA BR156) of the World. 



The dark forces

The Great Black Hawk (Buteogallus urubitinga, gavião-preto) is a large bird of prey common in the Pantanal. It's a dietary generalist, feeding on a wide range of prey, including birds. Here we captured the moment when a jacana (Jacana jacana) just escaped the hawk´s attack by a few milliseconds.
Hunting other birds

Facial details

Majestic !

Winning the armadillo lottery !

In 24 hours we've seen the biggest and smallest armadillo. Here´s a wonderful sighting of a giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus, tatu-canastra) of probably around 30-40 Kg and from tail to nose over a meter long !!! They walk on their massive claws and are very rare to see.

And here´s a new sighting for our mammal list: the southern naked-tailed armadillo (Cabassous unicinctus, tatu-de-rabo-mole), another very rare sighting !
Picture by Aude Schneeberger


 
 
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