01-14-2019, 01:46 PM
2018-12-30: Part 2
After breakfast, the snakers go off on their own while the rest of us boat upriver and then drift back down with a low-speed motor. We see lots of scarlet macaws congregating in some trees, and in one spot we go ashore to explore a sandbar (actually more a clay bar). There are capybara tracks all over it, including fresh ones down to river's edge. The boatman and I follow this up to where it enters the jungle. He tells me "cinco minutos," they were here five minutes ago. I ask about a bunch of marble-sized pellets, which as I suspect are capybara poop.
When we get back to the ecolodge, we check with the snakers, who have struck out yet again. The lack of rain grows ever more disturbing.
2018-12-30: Overlooked Outing -- Bird Copa
I've lost track of the day and time we observe the bird copa (clay lick), but it is prior to now. Let me fill that in, as it introduces something to follow. We boat across the river, dock on a clay bank, and walk up and aside through jungle and back down to an overlook of the river. A couple rotting planks serve as bleachers. We sit and watch a reddish clay cliff on the far bank. Scarlet macaws come swooping in to land in the trees around it. Some perch high up and to the sides, serving as lookouts. All are very loud, communication more important than stealth. Eventually one swoops down to land in a shallow recess on the cliff. Others slowly join it. They pick away at the clay. Some mouth a chunk and fly up into a tree, where they use a talon to hold it while picking away at it. There's 50-plus macaws, and they take turns on the copa, with occasional loud disputes over a landing spot. It is believed that the macaws eat the clay for its toxin-neutralizing properties (like humans eating charcoal to neutralize poison), because their diet includes toxic or caustic substances. Bird copas are very rare, as it takes a very special kind of clay. Also, they're hard to protect from poachers. This is one of the biggest bird copas around.
Occasionally a sentinel gives an alarm, and some macaws take flight, eventually to circle back. Finally they all take flight, becoming a big flock that heads off, though soon they will break apart, each to go its separate way.
After breakfast, the snakers go off on their own while the rest of us boat upriver and then drift back down with a low-speed motor. We see lots of scarlet macaws congregating in some trees, and in one spot we go ashore to explore a sandbar (actually more a clay bar). There are capybara tracks all over it, including fresh ones down to river's edge. The boatman and I follow this up to where it enters the jungle. He tells me "cinco minutos," they were here five minutes ago. I ask about a bunch of marble-sized pellets, which as I suspect are capybara poop.
When we get back to the ecolodge, we check with the snakers, who have struck out yet again. The lack of rain grows ever more disturbing.
2018-12-30: Overlooked Outing -- Bird Copa
I've lost track of the day and time we observe the bird copa (clay lick), but it is prior to now. Let me fill that in, as it introduces something to follow. We boat across the river, dock on a clay bank, and walk up and aside through jungle and back down to an overlook of the river. A couple rotting planks serve as bleachers. We sit and watch a reddish clay cliff on the far bank. Scarlet macaws come swooping in to land in the trees around it. Some perch high up and to the sides, serving as lookouts. All are very loud, communication more important than stealth. Eventually one swoops down to land in a shallow recess on the cliff. Others slowly join it. They pick away at the clay. Some mouth a chunk and fly up into a tree, where they use a talon to hold it while picking away at it. There's 50-plus macaws, and they take turns on the copa, with occasional loud disputes over a landing spot. It is believed that the macaws eat the clay for its toxin-neutralizing properties (like humans eating charcoal to neutralize poison), because their diet includes toxic or caustic substances. Bird copas are very rare, as it takes a very special kind of clay. Also, they're hard to protect from poachers. This is one of the biggest bird copas around.
Occasionally a sentinel gives an alarm, and some macaws take flight, eventually to circle back. Finally they all take flight, becoming a big flock that heads off, though soon they will break apart, each to go its separate way.
I'm nobody's pony.