Brazil 2023 - a loooooong time coming!

[Zubbie15]

@janzin I don't believe we saw Rio, there were a couple of jaguars we weren't able to identify but based on size I would guess they were both female (and I'm guessing our guide and/or pilot would have recognized Rio).

 

I realize looking at the EXIF data that the reason we left Marcela was to go anchor where Ti and her cubs were, but no luck.  So my next photos were a couple of hours later, when we found a small troop of howler monkeys hanging out in some trees.  They were fun to watch, but rather challenging to photograph in the mid-morning light.  I should mention that I believe this was the day (I really should have done a better job taking notes!) where we had a bit of a cold front come through (the high was maybe 27/28C, with clouds and a bit of wind).  We were actually concerned that the jaguars might be scarce but Marcela quickly dispelled that concern!

 

 

 

While we were anchored near Ti, Andre (co-owner of Pantanal Jaguar Safaris) had stopped by.  I didn't understand the conversation, but Henrique told us later that Andre was going to go off to see what he could find and the two of them would stay in contact to ensure the best sightings.  So we headed off and found Andre, sitting in a channel looking up into a tree.

 

 

It was Benita, doing her best leopard impression.  This really confused our kids, who had been fortunate enough to see several leopards when we were in Tanzania and so they kept mixing up jaguar and leopard. 

 

 

She was certainly a pretty lady, but not very active!

 

 

Eventually it got close to lunchtime, and Henrique suggested that we head back to camp.  So we headed off at quite a bit of speed, and were on our way when our pilot slammed on the breaks.  There was a jaguar up on the river bank.  Henrique couldn't identify this one immediately, so he sent a photo to the Jaguar ID team, and they came back with this being Kwang, a very shy male who is rarely seen.  We could appreciate his shyness as he didn't stick around for long, the second another boat showed up he disappeared off into the bushes.  

 

 

 

[Zubbie15]

This will probably be my last update until January, and a fairly short one.  I was actually feeling quite a bit better on this day, so during our time back in camp at midday I went for a bit of a walk around.  Just outside our room was a Vermillion Flycatcher pair that had set up home, and they were pretty much always somewhere around when we walked by.  This day the male posed reasonably well for me - they are definitely a stunning species!

 

 

I also went over to the boardwalk, but things were fairly quiet.  There was a Jacana nest on one of the giant lilypads, but there was already a photographer with a big lens set up on a tripod there, and I didn't want to disturb him. Unfortunately they never really posed after that time, so maybe I should have stuck around.  Instead, I tried to take some photos of the giant lilypads, which was a bit of a challenge as most of them were quite damaged.

 

 

Back out on the river, the weather really meant that most of the animals were hiding, so we didn't have much luck.  The only sighting of notice was a pair of Giant Otters, a different pair apparently than we had seen before (as they didn't have any injuries on their head).  Pretty quickly they managed to catch a small fish, but it ended up down the hatch quite quickly.

 

 

More interesting was the fact that they hauled out of the water for a while to mark their territory, it was impressive to see just how big they are when you can see the entire length of their body. 

 

 

A bit of a "blooper" here, I like the expression of the animal on the right!

 

[Atravelynn]

The jaguars have such expressive faces.  Glad the boats did not bother them.  All part of the background probably.  Great otter shots too.

[Kitsafari]

gorgeous shots of the jaguars! that's a pretty good haul of jaguar sightings? wow on the flycatcher!

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @Atravelynnand @Kitsafarifor the comments!  Happy new year to all that are following along, I'm back and ready to continue.  

 

The next day was my birthday, we'd gotten lucky on Henrique's birthday a few days prior so I was hoping that might be a good omen.  We headed out on the river, and because we were again a bit late soon came to a big group of boats in one of the main channels.  I forgot to mention before, but when we were staking out Ti and her cubs, a bloated, dead cow went floating down the river with two black vultures riding on top of it.  Well, this carcass had settled in a bend in the river, and the jaguar Alira was on the opposite bank checking it out.  

 

 

We spent quite a bit of time with her, amusing ourselves by trying to capture a pair of skimmers that were flying around the area.

 

 

I have to say the advanced autofocus worked really well with these really fast birds, I had more issues with heads from other boats (and sometimes ours!) getting in the way than actually tracking these birds.  

 

This was one situation where the jaguar didn't seem especially comfortable with the boats, she clearly wanted to cross the river to the cow but just as clearly didn't seem comfortable with all of the boats.  So we decided to head off eventually (based on my EXIF data we were there at least 90 minutes however) although not before stopping to get a quick closer look.

 

 

It was quiet for a while after this, we did see a second jaguar very briefly but with no opportunity to photograph it.  The main highlight was this Cocoi Heron taking off at slightly the wrong angle - by now I was definitely trying harder to take photos while the boat was moving, but did find that flight shots from this situation typically led to the wrong angle of flight.

 

[Zubbie15]

It wasn't long after seeing the Heron that we got word of another jaguar very close by, and we went over there to find that Marcela was back on the prowl for a meal.  She put on quite the show for us, apologies for jaguar overload...

 

Clearly on a mission!

 

 

There has to be some food over there, right?

 

 

Or over there?

 

 

Maybe if I look in the water instead?

 

 

Still no luck...

 

 

Back in the vegetation!

 

 

I think everyone is hoping for a jaguar on the beach type of shot, and as we were following along with her there were a couple of smaller beaches that we noted.  Our pilot clearly knew this was a goal (or maybe Henrique told him) so we would typically zoom a bit ahead of her to get into position.  It didn't work the first couple of times, but eventually we had a reasonably good opportunity on a longer beach. 

 

 

Still looking for a meal.

 

 

As she reached the end of the beach, all of a sudden she sprinted off into the bushes and there was a very brief struggle.  Then, she emerged with a baby capybara in her mouth, having found her meal finally! 

 

 

Poor little baby, but she definitely was in the need of a meal.  Not long after, she disappeared into the vegetation and we headed back for lunch.  

[Atravelynn]

Jaguar with a kill, wow!

 

[jeremie]

37 minutes ago, Atravelynn said:

Jaguar with a kill, wow!

 

 

Unique and very fortunate indeed!

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @Atravelynn and @jeremie, we were definitely luck with that sighting!

 

Back out in the afternoon, we heard that Alira had crossed the river after a lot of the boats had disappeared, so we headed off to see her.  I can't say it was the most natural situation, but it was worth a brief stop.

 

 

The smell was quite pungent if you ended up in the wrong location, so we didn't stay very long!  We continued along, and came across another jaguar (Benita) hanging out in some tree roots.  She didn't hang around especially long, but enough to give me a shot a really liked.

 

 

So the afternoon was off to a good start - I decided to get greedy and request a large male jaguar.  The only one we'd seen up to this point was Kwang, and he'd been very shy and hadn't shown well.  So we left Benita's area and motored pretty quickly over towards another location that was known to have a male and a female jaguar.  We did make a quick stop for a jabiru that was posing too nicely not to capture.

 

 

When we got to the beach where the jaguars were, we found them high up in a tree.  I have to say, and we'll see more of this later, that I was surprised by just how much time the jaguars were up in trees on this trip, for some reason I hadn't expected that.  This was one situation where I wish I had set myself up to take video, the sighting wasn't the best because of the dense foliage there were located in, but the growling and hissing was quite something.  Henrique had an adapter where he could attach his phone on top of his camera and take video with that while taking pictures, I have bought one and plan to test it out in Kenya next month.  There was just one brief second where they kind of came into view, I think it shows how tense the situation was.

 

 

This is Bororo who's face we can see, a large male, while  the female (who has her back to us) is Courtney.  They had been together a lot in the previous days (and I'll show them more in subsequent installments) but it didn't seem to be too amiable.  The guides thought that she might have had a cub and was trying to distract him, because there were no signs of actual mating, but that was all a guess.  

 

Even though the sighting was quite interesting, with the limited visibility Henrique suggested we move on as there was word that a female jaguar and her cub were visible.  We headed off at great speed and found them heading along the river bank.  This was Ibaka, with her cub known as Ipepo.

 

 

Mom was on a real mission, it seemed she wanted to get out of the area quickly. 

 

 

It was hard to get a  photo of Ipepo, he(?) generally stayed in the bushes along the bank and would very rarely pop out to check on mom.  This was the best I could do.

 

 

So for those counting, that gave us  8 jaguars for the day, which was definitely a pretty good haul.  And not to be outdone, as we were heading back toward the hotel we came across a couple of giant otters, who showed nicely (if briefly) in the late afternoon light.

 

 

All-in-all, not much to complain about on this day!

 

 

 

[Bush dog]

I like very much that B&W photo of the jaguar and more particularly the framing.  There are a lot of excellent pictures on this forum but not a lot like this one.

[janzin]

Yes I like that black and white one a lot too. Amazing how many jaguars you saw--so far!

 

Link to that camera phone adapter? It sounds interesting. I also just never think to do video until it's too late.

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @Bush dogand @janzin, I did like how that photo came out as well.

 

The adapter is nothing really special, this is the one I bought although I think there are a lot of similar options: ST-06 Camera Hot Shoe Phone Tripod Mount Adapter 360 Rotation Phone Holder with Cold Shoe for Mic Light Stand Compatible with Canon Nikon Sony DSLR for DJI Ronin SC Gimbal Stabilizer https://a.co/d/8NbQnfn

 

 

[Atravelynn]

Not only sightings, but action and drama!

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @Atravelynn for following along!

 

The next day came, and we were already down to our last full day in Porto Jofre amazingly.  At breakfast, I was approached out of the blue by a "random" stranger, asking me if I happened to be a member of SafariTalk.  It turned out it was @Alexander33, who was nice to meet, at least briefly, in person.  I had actually noticed him on the river the previous day(s) because he was wearing a Kicheche camps baseball hat, and had thought to myself that there was a kindred spirit.  Little did I know!  Actually, on this trip we overlapped also at a couple of stops on our trip with Vikram from Wild World India, who we hadn't seen when we went to India nor when we had to back out of the Svalbard trip he organized (that @janzinand @jmharackwent on and described previously).  So a nice coincidence to overlap with him and finally get to meet.

 

Heading out on the river, it didn't take us long to find the jaguar Patricia, posing for us quite nicely in a canal.  

 

 

She came out at one point along a fallen log, and we happened to be positioned really well to get what I think were some nice photos of her (with the caveat that there were some grasses in front of her that were kind of annoying).

 

 

 

 

When she disappeared, we quickly moved on and found some giant otters, and they were being efficient hunters as always.

 

 

 

There were also a fair number of birds in this area, with this juvenile Night Heron posing well.

 

 

And caiman living life a little dangerously, fairly close to the location of Patricia.

 

 

Edited January 6 by Zubbie15
formatting

[Atravelynn]

How fun to meet up with a fellow safaritalk member.  It really looks like the jaguars attended a photo shoot.

[Bush dog]

One more great B&W jaguar image!  The dark thick and dense vegetation behind the animal gives this image a touch of mystery and adventure.  A perfect example, like the previous one, of creative post-process and framing.

[jeremie]

The difference in shape and head size of a old female jaguar like Patricia is striking, when comparing to.a young one like Ibaca or Benita!

I remember very well Ibaca, she was thinner by then. It seems the head of females still grow during years. Not 100% Sure. I will ask Andre Moratelli.

[Zubbie15]

Thanks @Atravelynn, @Bush dogand @jeremie!

 

On 1/7/2024 at 5:11 AM, Bush dog said:

One more great B&W jaguar image! 

 

Thanks so much - I don't know if it was the mood I was in or not, but I really found the jaguars lent themselves well to B&W photos.  

 

22 hours ago, jeremie said:

It seems the head of females still grow during years.

Interesting idea, I hadn't really considered that.  It seems like that would be a reasonable interpretation. 

 

[Bush dog]

I do not think that it is a question of mood, it's just feeling or gift, perhaps.  You should renew the experience with some others of your pictures.

[madaboutcheetah]

@Zubbie15what a spectacular report .....

 

I've not been anywhere in South America yet ( pantanal and to a great extent the Pumas in Chile are on my to do list one day ) 

[pedro maia]

I couldn’t miss a Pantanal TR, it’s allways a pleasure to get back there, even if only through images, and your photos are amazing, lots of superb pictures, jaguars are obviously the stars onf the show but I also liked a lot the photos of the black vulture with the chick in the beam of light, among others.

[Zubbie15]

It's been a busy week, time to get back to this report!

 

@Bush dog, thanks so much.  I actually processed a lion picture in B&W the other day that I think came out well. There's something about the simplicity of removing the color that I think often works well.

 

@madaboutcheetahI'm not sure you'd like jaguars more than cheetahs, but they are remarkably active compared to a lot of big cats.  I'm sure you would enjoy them.  I agree with you about the pumas, that trip is very high on my bucket list.

 

@pedro maiathanks for the kind words, I think the vulture with chick was a very unique opportunity to see an interaction that usually occurs way up in the tree canopy.

 

Our next stop was to check out Bororo and Courtney.  They were definitely more active, and we in particular got a nice view of Courtney up in the tree.

 

 

They were moving around a lot, and Bororo did pass through a brief opening in the vegetation to give a slightly better view.

 

 

They have such powerful jaws!

 

This was one of those win-some/lose-some situations where we ended up losing...  They were hanging out in an area of river that was full of S-curves, and so they were on a piece of land that had water on three sides.  They headed off away from where we were, so all of the boats (we were roughly 5, so not too bad) headed over to the other side of the peninsula they were on.  We waited there for about 15 minutes before someone decided to go check back where we had been, and I guess they had turned around and actually swum across the river where we had been.  Ugh!  But the boat that went over radioed everyone, and we headed back to our original spot and could see a lot of bushes moving on the opposite bank. However, we never got a clear view of them again, and they either moved further from our location or they stopped to rest somewhere.  

 

So we moved on, and a short while later came across another jaguar.  I think this is Alira, but I am not totally sure (we saw multiple jaguars after Bororo and Courtney, and I only have the name of one).  

 

 

We followed her along the river for a while.  

 

 

Let's finish this morning off with a couple of Cocoi Heron shots - they were so common but rather flightly I found.  

 

 

 

And a Bare-faced Currasow, very beautiful birds.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 17 by Zubbie15
removed extra photo

[Zubbie15]

Our last afternoon was actually quite quiet, so this should be a short installment.  We headed out, and eventually found the giant otters again, and they had caught another fish.

 

 

While we never saw a larger group than 3 animals, I was really happy on this trip with how often we saw the otters.  As someone who rarely sees otters - we have river otters in my area but I only see them very occasionally, typically when they are running across the road - it was nice to have extended views of them.  We didn't spend too much time with them, as seems to always happen when time is getting short we started to default to the charismatic fauna we came to see (not that the otter weren't charismatic, but our goal was to see jaguars).

 

So moving along, we found a fairly distant jaguar who was taking a siesta in the shade of a bush.  But it wasn't doing much, so we didn't stick around long.

 

 

We ended the day, I'm pretty sure, back with Patricia.  We don't have a name in our notes, but at least the location was the same as where we saw her this morning.  She came out for us onto a fallen log, and we joked that she was posing for her admirers.

 

 

We spent a while with her (I have photos spanning 16 minutes), but she didn't really move from that log and we eventually had to start heading back to the lodge.

 

 

So a  relatively calm afternoon, but we did get two jaguars and the hunting otters which all-in-all isn't a bad haul!

[Kitsafari]

2 jaguars and hunting otters in just one afternoon is pretty good!

[Zubbie15]

@Kitsafari, yes, hard to complain!  

 

So the last morning dawned, and as always it felt like things had progressed much too quickly!  We had to finish packing up so we left slightly later than usual (so very late compared to most people), but we still had time to hope for a nice sighting or two. We've always felt that the "safari gods" treat us to a good sighting on the end of our trips, and so we hoped that would hold true here as well (acknowledging that this wasn't actually the end of the whole trip).  

 

 

Our first sighting was this Crane Hawk.  Henrique wasn't much of a lister when it came to birds, but he got quite excited to see this.  But we quickly moved on, as either Henrique or our pilot, heard that there was an active jaguar nearby.  So we motored over there, to find a new jaguar (Medrosa) down a small channel.  She was clearly active and looking for some food.

 

 

After a while, she climb up on the branch you can see in the photo above, and seemed to be interested in something below. The light was tough at this time, so I played around with a bit of a backlit style of picture (even if we only saw her from an angle).

 

 

Definitely something interesting down there...

 

 

She ended up curling up on the branch, and then before long launched herself into the plants below!

 

 

This is an example of where the mirrorless cameras shine, every frame I took of this jump was in focus and I can only give credit to the eye autofocus, it was too fast for me to focus otherwise.  Henrique actually got a slow-motion video of this jump; he posted it a few weeks ago to his Instagram and it is now approaching 15 million views.  

 

She ended up missing whatever (caiman, presumably) she was trying to catch, and made her way up to the bank looking rather sad.  At this time, we made the decision to quickly head over to another jaguar that was in the main channel 5 minutes away, and found her in some heavy bushes.  This was Alira, who we'd seen several times already. 

 

 

But she lay back down, and so we decided to head back to Medrosa.  In the few minutes we have been gone, she had dried herself off, and was starting to walk along the bank.  This of course led to a lot of jockeying of the boats, until she headed back up onto a dead tree to seemingly dry off.

 

 

However, after not long she again gathered her rear legs underneath her, and with minimal warning jumped down into the vegetation!

 

 

Almost too close for my lens, this is essentially uncropped.  I'm still not sure I like the B&W conversion here, I might revisit this processing.  

 

This jump did allow her to capture a caiman, and we could hear lots of thrashing in the vegetation. Unfortunately we couldn't see anything - the boats 2 or 3 slots down from us clearly had a good view, based on how everyone was reacting, but we were stuck with moving plants. Oh well, sometimes you don't get lucky (not that we had much to complain about!). 

 

Once she had subdued the caiman, she seemed to settle down in an area where we couldn't see her.  Henrique suggested we leave, and he would keep in touch with a couple of other guides so if there was something going on we could return (in the end I guess some people had a very obscured view of her bringing the dead caiman up the bank, but we didn't miss much).  

 

The rest of the morning was fairly quiet, we did find our giant otters again and watched them hunt briefly.

 

 

And there was what seemed to be a well-known anaconda lair on the way back to camp, we had checked a couple of other times what this was the first time we saw it out basking.  Very cool to see!

 

 

So that was it for our time on the river - I think the safari gods gave us a good send off!