Day 10 of the Pantanal of Brazil

We reluctantly left Porto Jofre and the jaguars this morning.  But before we left, I took a few photos around the lodge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed our phones around so that a volunteer could take group photos. I am on the left side of the photo with my hand on the jaguar’s hat. Behind me is Petr, also with a hand on the jaguar’s hat.  In the back right is our fantastic local guide, Fisher.

We didn’t go far along the Transpantaneira before we were stopped by a herd of cattle. They parted slowly as we crept through.

Below is a typical wooden bridge – one of 122 bridges between Porto Jofre and Pocone. The spots are on the van’s windshield.

We stopped along the road to get a quick photo of Roseate Spoonbills and Wood Storks.

Fisher got excited suddenly and had the bus driver stop so we could get a photo of a beautiful Capped Heron. This is the only one of the species we saw on the entire trip. That is a Pink Ipe tree in the background of the third photo.

Shortly after 11 am we reached the Southwild Lodge. The beds had fancy mosquito netting which I did not bother to use. The room was air-conditioned, as they all were, and we were careful not to let mosquitos in, especially at dawn and dusk when they are typically active.

This view of the lodge looks from near the dining area back toward our room at the far end. 

I took a few photos on the lodge grounds before and after lunch.

 

 

 

 

Around 2:30 pm we boarded a boat to try to photograph kingfishers feeding and whatever else we could find along the river.

Here is an Amazon Kingfisher with a rather large fish and a second one perched.  

But the real stars of the afternoon were the Ringed Kingfishers, who managed to grab and eventually swallow their fish lunches. 

Here is a somewhat lengthy slideshow of the Ringed Kingfishers.

 

But the kingfishers weren’t the only creatures feasting on fish. A Giant Otter also found a few.

A Little Blue Heron grabbed a small fish along the shore of the river.

 

And then we found a beautiful Sunbittern.  I was able to get photos of it flying. 

 

On the boat ride back, I photographed a Green Ibis,

and a Gray-neck Wood-rail. 

The river was very shallow in places.  We almost got stuck several times. We had to rearrange the weight distribution in the boat so that the heavier folks were not all in the stern. 

Before dinner, we headed out into the forest hoping to photograph an Ocelot. Along the way we were stopped by a Rufous-tailed Jacamar that was sitting on a sign along the path warning about Jaguar danger.

We were escorted to a set of two-level blinds.

We waited until it got dark when an Ocelot might appear. The area was lit by some fairly-weak floodlights. Here are some of the photos of the one Ocelot we saw, taken at a high ISO and slow shutter speed.  Ocelots are 16 inches tall and weigh 35 pounds, 1/10 the weight of a Jaguar.

After dinner, I headed out to a Jabiru Stork nest to photograph the Milky Way. The photo below is a five-image panorama. The nest is the huge pile at the very top of the tree.

This Milky Way photo was taken slightly after 8 pm. It was great to be able to get a photo of the Milky Way during warm weather and before normal bedtime. The only drawback was the vicious mosquitoes.