Day 7 of the Pantanal of Brazil

The seventh day of our adventure in Brazil was the first of three that we would spend more than 11 hours on a small boat, which is more than the daylight hours of each day. Our lunches would be delivered to us on the river by boat far from where we launched in the morning. Bathrooms were wherever the boat could safely pull on shore away from jaguars.

Breakfast was early, and before we left I got a quick photo of a Toucan in the courtyard outside my room.

We hustled down to the dock. You can see they make good use of old tires here. Fisher pushed us off at around 6:30 am and hopped on board. We passed by some other docks along the way to the main river network.

Acclimatized to New England weather, I was wearing just a thin shirt and light jacket. Others found the early morning boat ride quite cold. It was a bit brisk when the boat moved at high speed which it did whenever the driver heard by radio that a Jaguar was spotted or when we spent 30 minutes racing home after dark.

The clouds were quite interesting as we motored along the river.

After a bit over 30 minutes our boat suddenly turned 180° and raced at high speed back down the river. I soon realized that other boat drivers had radioed ours to tell of a Jaguar sighting.

For about 15 minutes I held my cameras against my body and away from the sides of the bouncing boat. It was quite obvious when we arrived. Just like the bear jams that would pile up cars in Glacier NP, we sometimes had jaguar jams. This is a six-photo panorama taken with my iPhone.

It is very rare to see more than one Jaguar at a time. During a half dozen trips or more, Petr had only seen two together a few times. But our first sighting was a family of three! They look clear as day up on this low cliff, but it took me some time to spot them. In the two photos below, the parent is on the far right.

Here is a photo of one of the young.

And photos of the other young jaguar with the adult on the right. Our boat was drifting rather than grounded so the background in these photos keeps changing.

One young jaguar got up and moved to the left.

Fisher was surprised to see two siblings growing up together in the same territory. But here the two are together.

Juraj stood up to photograph the trio.

The adult got up and moved to the left.

After about an hour, we reluctantly departed. Over the next 90 minutes, we saw a Cormorant, Anhinga, Toucan flying, house boat for tourists, and a fisherman who had caught a large Barred Sorubim.

We saw a Capybara with a pup.

Our first pair of many Giant Otters were spotted at around 9 am.

We headed up a small tributary. I took a photos of a flower and of an Amazon Kingfisher with a fish, perched, and shaking water from it its wings.

We watched a Cormorant struggling to swallow a Snow Pieco. Strange to have “snow” in its name. Fisher has never seen snow in real life.

BZL-0493N-Neotropic-Cormorant-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0493L-Neotropic-Cormorant-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0494H-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-fish-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0493H-Neotropic-Cormorant-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0494D-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-fish-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0493M-Neotropic-Cormorant-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0495E-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-Snow-Pieco

BZL-0495K-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-fish-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre-a-Snow-Pieco

BZL-0495N-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-fish-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre-a-Snow-Pieco

BZL-0496E-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-fish-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre-a-Snow-Pieco

BZL-0496F-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-fish-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre-a-Snow-Pieco

Around 10 am we found an immature Great Black Hawk. One visited Maine a few winters ago — a mega-rarity. Unfortunately, it did not survive the cold.

A Green Iguana sat in the brush above the river bank.

We found a very beautiful and cute pair of Black-capped Donacobius along the shore. They mate for life.

They were apparently having a discussion.

Fifteen minutes later, the cormorant was still struggling with its huge Snow Pieco. Or perhaps it was a different one. My memory is a bit foggy on this point.

BZL-0500C-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-Snow-Pieco-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0500J-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-Snow-Pieco-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0500O-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-Snow-Pieco-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0500F-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-Snow-Pieco-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0500H-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-Snow-Pieco-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0500R-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-Snow-Pieco-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0502S-Neotropic-Cormorant-with-Snow-Pieco-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

The next 45 minutes were spent photographing hawks, kingfishers, and other birds along the river while looking for another Jaguar or, perhaps more correctly, waiting to hear that one had been spotted by other boat drivers.

High in a tree I spotted a Black-collared Hawk. You might be able to spot it at the top left.

Around 11 am, we had our second jaguar sighting –- actually the fourth jaguar of the morning. Jaguars are cats that have no qualms about swimming. They seem very comfortable in the water.

BZL-0510S-Jaguar-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0510H-Jaguar-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0510L-Jaguar-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

BZL-0510O-Jaguar-along-the-river-from-Porto-Jofre

Here is our group in the foreground, and some of the other boats trailing in the background, photographing that swimming Jaguar.

Over the next 80 minutes we cruised a small side stream and saw a vulture, hawks, herons, a capybara, a swallow, and an anhinga.

Back on a larger river, we saw another pair of Giant Otters.

Finally, a little past 12:30 pm, we pulled over for lunch that was delivered to us by boat.

While eating lunch, I found the tree roots along the shore interesting. I was also able to photograph a beautiful Black-backed Water-tyrant that was nice enough to pose for us along the shore near our boat.

After lunch, it was more birds along the side streams –- some beautifully colored and some of the larger ones more plain.

We found a beautiful Pygmy Kingfisher.

Around 2:40 pm, we saw another pair of Giant Otters. Here are photos of one of the pair.

About ten minutes later, we found the fifth Jaguar of the day.

This one provided us with some excitement because it was stalking a Capybara. It charged, but amazingly the Capybara was too fast diving into the river just before the Jaguar arrived. Here is the sequence.

We explored a number of small tributaries, some of them fairly broad and some of them shallow and muddy. Here are some of the photos that I took over the next 70 minutes.

Around 4:25 pm, we were converging on our sixth Jaguar of the day. What a fantastic first day this had been!

The Jaguars have different spot patterns that allows Identification of specific individuals. I will write more about this when I show photos and discuss what we saw Day 8.

This Jaguar gave us a number of opportunities to photograph it as it: stalked along the river’s edge; leaped at something, or maybe just leaped to get down to the water in a different way; walked along the shore in the water; and finally posed dramatically on a beach shortly before sunset in the late-day golden glow.