The Pantanal a frenetic frenzy of fabulous wildlife spotting

[Towlersonsafari]

Jane and I have just come back from our first south America trip, our first group tour but not the first trip with a self-inflicted injury! (I am typing one handed) We saw much more than expected, our guide was splendid and we need another holiday to recover! We saw lots of GRO's (Giant River Otters) a Tyra,  Jaguars baby Capybara's Ocelots and splendid birds-Toco Toucans are just ridiculous

I think I need another lie down

[offshorebirder]

I can't wait to read your trip report @Towlersonsafari.   I hoe the drought and fires were not hard on you.    Ocelot - color me jealous!

 

 

[Petter Sverke]

Looking forward to this as I'm going to the Pantanal in less than 2 weeks!

[jeffb]

Me too - I'll be there in October!

[kilopascal]

Can’t wait to hear all about it. Returning there in May. 

[Whyone?]

Also looking forward to this having visited last year - especially interested to hear a first-hand account how the wildfires are impacting the area?

[Towlersonsafari]

Thanks everyone. First logistics.This was our first group tour, with Wildlife Worldwide.There were 12 in total. Latam Air were as fine as a 12 hour economy flight could be.Had we thought we would have flown a day early and had a rest as we left home at 3.00pm, our flight left after 9.00pm and we reached the first lodge at about 5.30pm the following day.

Getting from Terminal 3 to 2 was reasonably ok (and on the way back there were pretty coloured lines to follow so that all went smoothly.

The trip info suggested a safari truck would take us along the Transpantaneira but we used a mini-bus as apparently the road has got a lot busier.It was also hot-most days 40 C by mid afternoon.

We had read about the wildfires.None affected the places we stayed out nor did we see signs save for a strong haze at the Cuiaba end.

We are not qualified to say what effect the drought has had on the wildlife.In the jaguar area water levels were at an all time low.We stayed at the Port of the Capybara lodge, some way off the main area.Normally that works well as you can have unique sightings, but because the usual channels were too low it took too long to travel to the best areas.This meant instead of 2 4 hour trips a day we had  whole day trips

[Towlersonsafari]

The journey down the the Transpantaneira- involved stopping at bridge water holes.It did seem very dry but the bird life was plentiful and it was our first sight of caiman.WE saw lots as you can imagine but not as many capybara as we perhaps expected.Sightings included

 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

And

 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

And 2 birds I really hoped to see-

 

The Great Pootoo thankfully not being so stealthy|

[Towlersonsafari]

Our first lodge was Pousso Alegre-about half way down. We did a couple of drives in a safari truck with very low seats, a walk, night drives  and one morning watching the birds/monkeys/Crab eating fox come to the feeders. As with all the activities, they were enhanced by Tom our guide. A local guy enthusiastic, friendly patient and helpful. He seemed just as delighted with the sightings as we were. He was a large part of why the trip was enjoyable. The lodge was quite large-there were several groups-basic but clean. The food was okish save the breakfast which were good. As I think someone else said if you were not on time for meals it was soon gone!

[Towlersonsafari]

The first night drive included a brief glimpse of Giant Anteater-our only one, a night time ocelot and our first ever Tapier! I have seen film of course but was not prepared for how big they were-taken in low light

 

[Towlersonsafari]

And whilst waiting at another waterhole, a Tayra! Only the 5th one our guide had seen! Jane managed this footage with her Panasonic travel camera

 

[Towlersonsafari]

The next day was an early pre-breakfast drive.I struggle with low seats-artificial knees- and  whilst trying to stand up-cannot remember why now- and levering myself up I heard a ( to my ears) loud crack in my right arm accompanied by an awful lot of pain-I have a lot of metalwork in that arm and my first thought-well second after OW! was something had happened to that -but nothing sticking out no blood-and a kindly GP on the trip later agreed probably a tendon or bicep tear. For the rest of the trip i could not use bino's but just about managed the OM1 with 40-150mm plus 1.4 converter which was a good combo.Tom did offer to drive me to the nearest hospital but that would probably have meant the end of the holiday so with Jane's long suffering help we managed. I had lots of paracetamol

[Miss Biscuit]

Looking forward to comparing notes! I was there September 2-8. But I won't have my trip report written for quite some time.

[Towlersonsafari]

Still clouds and silver linings! we spent a splendid time watching the birds at the feeders. Hurrah for flippy screens and bird detect-I managed to balance the camera on my knee and take aim! I would definitely recommend watching the birds come down after they put the fruit and seeds out at ^.30am.The light was not great but we had good views of Toco Toucans, (what splendid view) Crested Oropendola and another hoped for target Chestnut eared Aracari. also our best views of Coati's.

 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

 

 

[Towlersonsafari]

 

 

 

Edited September 12 by Towlersonsafari
wrong photo

[TonyQ]

Sorry to hear about your arm injury. (I hope you are recovering!)

You did very well to get such good photos. You saw a good variety of birds.

The Tayra is an amazing sighting, and well done for getting such a good video of it.

[janzin]

2 hours ago, Towlersonsafari said:

As I think someone else said if you were not on time for meals it was soon gone!

Yes that was me, guess it hasn't improved!

 

Sorry about your arm, your photos looks great--you'd never know you were injured!

[michael-ibk]

Ouch, really sorry about your injury. But really great sightings and photos so far!

[AfricIan]

So sorry to hear about your arm, as someone with metalwork in my shoulder I know how paranoid I get about further damaging it so I hope your arm is improving with rest (other than writing this TR!!), you got some great photos though.

We're also just back from Brazil (today) and wading through all my photos will take a while so I'll be lapping up your account and comparing your trip with ours to see where you saw things.

There was a lot of smoke & haze from the wildfires on a couple of days & the sunrise & sunsets were spectacularly red but other than one instance "on the road" we didn't "see flames".

The low water levels also restricted access to the channels that Samuel, our guide, was hoping to take us but in general we didn't feel we were missing out but it almost certainly concentrated all the boats into a smaller space and it did get a bit more than a little "silly" at times.

Looking forward to more.