"My Favourite Pantanal Birds" - a presentation by Louis

This is my first presentation in Keynote and I liked making it.

We used Daddy's photos and information that I got from Alyson, our guide at Southwild in the Pantanal who was really good.  He looked pretty sad though when we didn't see the jaguar on our trail walk the other day!

By Louis

Travelling George

George on a flight 

The children of Frankie’s class last year, J2.4, very kindly bought him, as a leaving gift, a lovely little St. Georges bear, whom he’s not unreasonably named George.  Frankie chose George as the one cuddly toy allowed to accompany him on his travels, and decided that we’d get a photograph of George in the different locations we visit. 

  

George at the Copacabana

Stepping out after breakfast one morning in the Pantanal, we thought we’d get a picture of George with a toucan.  There’s a tree just outside where a couple of toucans tend to congregate in the early morning.  However we noticed that there were at least four chaps there with large cameras, supported by elaborate tripods, each with a lens the size of a large fire extinguisher.  Our little Canon looked rather pokey by comparison.  I resisted the urge to mention that we actually have quite a reasonable Nikon camera at home that we decided not to take because you can never get anything else in your day-sack once it’s in.  One chap had a remote control device for his camera and was standing about ten yards away while his camera whirred away busily. Perhaps if they set up some sort of webcam he wouldn’t need to come out here at all, just send the camera on ahead and ask them to set it up for him.  On second thoughts, given the wifi is generally intermittent that might be tricky...

We waited till everyone had finished, lest we get blacklisted by the birding community*, and Frankie crept closer to the toucan with George for our snap.  Except the closer he crept, the higher up the tree the toucan went. So here’s what we ended up with.

* Apologies for our ignorance but we admit to having learnt a new word this month - birders - keen bird-watchers basically. Perhaps if the boys really get into this then there could be a Bader Birders on Tour in the future.......

A few other places George has been to so far in Brazil.....


with Ronaldo  at our delightful little Pousada in lovely Bonito......

- our friend Elder in Curitiba

On the Mountain train with our unforgettable guide from Curitiba to Morretes........








....... with Whisky at the Isla do Mel - a lovely little dog who is sadly blind, but was nevertheless lots of fun, and curiously would bark like mad when anybody sneezed! 

.......and with Nicolas and Lucca in Morretes and their unmistakeable VW van

Tom Cruise......my new best mate!

When a train breaks down in England, it is commonly met with loud tutting and contemptuous glares at any unfortunate member of staff who happens to be there, regardless of their culpability. It is also the prompt for a spate of unnecessarily loud mobile phone calls, as if the caller has been served some greater injustice than their fellow passengers.

Oh no!  Another delay!

Here in Brazil, the reaction is somewhat different.  At least that was our experience on the Curitiba to Morretes mountain train. Due, perhaps in some small part, to the free beer on board (we’d paid a couple of extra quid for the privilege even though it left at 8am) the announcement by the very friendly and informative train guide that “the seeestem has fallen down ahgen” was greeted with great hilarity, more singing and general bonhomie, as if we were all sharing some kind of special life experience together.   And I guess, in a sense, perhaps we were.....

We ended up rolling in at 1.45, nearly 3 hours late, but nobody seemed that bothered. And as for the panoramas, well we got to see quite a few like this, 

......but our favourite one was this..

.

Our time in the Pantanal.....

Reproduced below are some entries in the boys’ journals this week about our time in the Pantanal, first Louis then Frankie.  This was one of the opening tasks of “Holiday School”!

We have also put together a collection of photos depicting our time in this exciting place where we had much closer encounters with animals than we imagined we would. (Which is just as well since whilst our new camera is tiny, very handy and very portable, the zoom is not that great!).

If you click on the arrow below and cross your fingers, you’ll hopefully get a sense of the Pantanal. (with music for those that don't like animals much)

Our trip to the Pantanal - By Louis

The Pantanal - By Frankie

The Caiman

We were on our way from the airport to Southwilds in the Pantanal, but I fell asleep in the car, meanwhile Mummy was still awake and she saw a caiman on the way!  I was really jealous the next day but when we went on a boat ride I wasn't so jealous because we saw thousands more!!

Alyson, our guide, told us that caimans are from the Alligator family.  They swallow stones to stay at the bottom of the river for longer as it makes them heavier and then they regurgitate the stones.  Crocodiles also do this to help crush the bones of the prey they have eaten.  Caimen eat fish which is a good way to control the piranha population in the rivers.  Otherwise if there is not much water and therefore less fish, the piranhas will eat baby caimans! 

We saw this caiman with a catfish in its mouth.  Alyson said it was waiting until we go before it will eat it.

By Frankie

Tics

  

Mummy saw this tic on my ear, and I had to pull it really hard to get it off, it must have been having a good drink of my blood.  Yuk!  

The tic looks like a little beetle but is in fact not an insect, but in the arachnid family, so is more like a spider.
  

by Louis

The Katydid (like a cricket)

We rescued this green, nice grasshopper from the cold dark swimming pool at Regua's Lodge. We thought he was dead but he was actually alive and he hopped away afterwards.

The Katydid is a long-horned grasshopper that lives chiefly in trees and shrubs. (The term long-horned refers to the antennae.) The katydid is named for its mating call, "Katydid! Katydidn't!'' The call, in most species made by the male only, is produced by rubbing a scraper on one forewing against the toothed edge of the other forewing.  Katydids commonly grow to be 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches (38 to 64 mm) long, but some tropical species exceed 6 inches (15 cm). Many katydids are green and have wings resembling leaves, making them difficult for predators to detect among foliage. 

by Frankie

On the trail of the Jaguar....

On this our third day in the Pantanal, Louis and Frankie weren’t overly excited about the trail walk.  Seeing animals on a horse, boat or from a land rover takes less apparent effort, regardless of the greater excitement you might get from being close to an animal on foot.   Nevertheless, as we headed out after another very early breakfast, there was an air of anticipation for Jules and I, we were hoping to see perhaps a tapir, or even a jaguar.  From the boys’ perspective? Well they just wanted to see another antlion. (For those of you - like us until yesterday - who have no idea what this is, it's a small creature that, when at the larvae stage, sets a fatal trap for unsuspecting ants. Look out for Frankie’s entry under “Animals we have seen” coming soon - it's a grisly end for the ant!

Minutes into the trail,  Alyson was showing us jaguar foot prints.  We’d seen these on our previous trail walk, so this wasn’t initially a cause for great excitement, however he explained that these looked very fresh.  And very big.  We continued on and realised that given these prints were clear and undisturbed, the jaguar was likely to have been the most recent visitor on this path.  Alyson looked at the distance between the paw prints, and estimated the size of the body, adding that the tail and head would make this jaguar one of the biggest he would have ever seen here. 

Alyson estimating the trunk length of the jaguar...

As we gingerly continued down the path, Alyson beckoned us off the path at a tangent to the left.  Every now and again he’d hold his finger to his lips to advise silence.  That was normally the trigger for some urgent whispering on the boys part, but that’s another story.  Had he seen something? We crunched our way forward (its really hard to be quiet on a bed of dead leaves) and after a couple of minutes, he pointed upwards.  We looked up at the empty tree, wondering why he had taken us here, there were very clearly no jaguars up there.  He whispered, pointing again “A Great Potoo”.  Then I saw it, this very strange looking bird, a mere 3 metres above me.  A grey mottled colouring resembled a sort of owl made from newspaper papier mache, except before it has been painted.  I remembered the reverence and excitement of the group at REGUA with whom we’d seen a potoo the other night.  They were still talking about it hours later as if they’d been in the front row at a rock concert.  And that was a smaller one, on a fence post 100 metres away in the dark......... 

After getting pictures from every conceivable angle, and repeating the process once it actually opened its eyes slightly, Alyson motioned for us to move on. We’d heard a strange knocking and he pointed to tall tree where half way up, there was a capuchin monkey hitting the tree with presumably some sort of nut or pod it was trying to open. Clever. 

Hairy poo gave us a cloo......

Returning to the main trail, Alyson stopped to look at some droppings.  Fresh, very fresh, they even LOOKED warm.  He poked them with a stick which revealed them to be somewhat hairy inside.  “These are jaguar droppings, he’s eaten something like a peccory, this is its fur”.  He added that it meant he probably wouldn’t be hungry for a while.  The prospect of being merely mauled as distinct from mauled AND eaten didn’t reassure Louis very much who suggested that we should turn back. When we encouraged him to continue with us “because we are here to spot a jaguar after all” he reluctantly continued, but decided to start sending secret messages to the jaguar to keep away, by being as noisy as possible with his walking stick.

Barely 20 metres after the droppings we noticed a patch of very wet sand. Alyson gazed slowly around, as if trying to second guess which route the jaguar might have taken. This reinforced his view that we were just minutes behind the jaguar.  In fact, Alyson surmised that the jaguar was probably taking a pee while we were photographing the potoo.  We remain divided in the family as to whether that was a good thing or not!!

So here’s the closest we got to photographing a jaguar.....

7th September 2012

Rare sightings.......

Today was indeed a day of rare sightings.......

We began with a hearty early morning breakfast, having benefitted from the extra hour sleep due to the time change.  (We hadn’t realised that we were in a different timezone until this morning and that did explain how we’d somehow amazingly arrived ten minutes early to Cuiaba when we'd left Brasilia 50 minutes late.) 
Louis has found a new bird to replace the cockerel that troubled him in the early hours at REGUA. He’s called it the "Hooheehoohee bird", which broadly resembles its early morning call.

Our boat ride gave us a three-hour encounter to remember with caimen, capybara, monkeys and birds of many colours and sizes (mostly huge!) along a glass river to the backdrop of beautiful green forest.  Look out for more "Animals we have seen" blog entries from Louis and Frankie.

You got so close to animals that we’d previously seen only from a distance, that after a couple of hours, you went from 
“Let’s hope we can see a caimen today” to:
“Ok now let’s see if we can see a capybara with a bird on its head, a large caimen with its mouth open in the foreground, and a blue heron swooping past with a fish in its mouth.......” 

Afterwards, we had a few hours to ourselves, lazing around by a little pool reflecting on what we’d witnessed together.  Then later in the afternoon, Alyson gave us our riding helmets and he took us to get our horses.  The boys had been on a horse briefly at friends in Canada a couple years ago, but only to go around in a circle a few times.   So we were a little concerned as to how they’d get on with a two hour ride.  They turned out to be much more relaxed on the horses than we were.  And their bottoms probably weren’t as sore either. 

Our guide, Jing Jang, took us through beautiful forests and wetlands, and the horses were (thankfully) very obedient. at times, we followed fresh jaguar prints with a sense of great anticipation. No doubt the boys will probably remember when the horses wee’d and poo’d more than the various “interesting sights” but it was a lovely time to share together. 

But despite close ups with a huge caimen, and the improbably large jabirus right in front of us, these were no match for the rarest sight of them all...

Louis and Frankie, unprompted, reading stories on their kindles!

5 Sept 2012

Our time at REGUA

We have just spent 11 lovely days at REGUA (Reserva Ecologica de Guapiacu).  We arrived to a very warm welcome and the children instantly bonded with the young volunteers, guides and other staff here by going out on trail walks and learning about the wildlife and playing table tennis with them.  They’ve even been given rides on pick-up trucks and motorbikes which, for two young boys, is the coolest thing ever!  

We had been slightly concerned when we arranged this trip that, whilst the children have a passion for wildlife, it had tended to be for the larger animals like lions, tigers and rhinos, so we weren’t sure if this would extend to birds, reptiles and insects.  We have been very pleased to find that this visit has aroused a real interest in the smaller species though and Louis and Frankie, have been very content to rummage around in the leaves on guided walks to find the smallest of insects and walk long trails to the location of a moth light at dawn to find out which moths were attracted to it. 

From the busy city of Rio to the tranquil setting of REGUA the boys have enjoyed a sense of freedom and independence here at the reserve which feels reminiscent of England when you used to be able to leave your door open and kids could play outside on the street. (not that I'm that old!)  The Brazilians are very family-oriented and extremely welcoming to children and like to involve them in all activities.

Aside from nature walks both in the day and at night (see Animals we have seen tab) we’ve experienced all sorts of other fun things, including a night ride in a little rowing boat to hunt for caimen; picnics and swims in local rivers and waterfalls; visits to local villages and the local school (see Guapiacu school visit) and a lot of football and table tennis. 

The photos give a flavour of our time there, and also show a few of the animals, moths and butterflies that we photographed, including a Wolf Spider, White Moth, Humming Bird, red bananas and orange lemons, trees that know how to protect themselves against other strangler vines, a beautiful stripey owl that we rescued after it inadvertantly flew into the lab and couldn't get out, as well as lots of the boys' friends.

If we are lucky enough to get out to Rio again for the World Cup or Olympics, then a visit back here will be high on the agenda!

Clever parents.....

Flew from Rio to Brasilia then to Cuiaba ahead of a long bumpy drive across the Transpanateria to find our new home for the next five days.  Checking in at Rio, Jules and I were wondering about these internal South American flights as we'd never heard of the airline before. Just then the chap behind the desk pushes a piece of paper and a pencil across the counter, and asked, in a thick Portuguese accent: "Heymergency nahmbers pliss".  Very reassuring.

I was thinking that you get better at spotting animals once you've been doing this animal-spotting malarky for a while.  In the minibus, our guide, Alison - it seems to be a man's name out here - was giving us some explanations on what we can expect to see.  The boys were particularly excited at the prospect of caimen, giant otters and crab-eating foxes. Jules spotted some flashing lights over to the right, and explained knowledgeably to the boys that the lightning bugs out here are much bigger than in REGUA, our previous home.  (Lightning bugs are amazing little creatures whose rear ends literally light up brightly while they fly around, they seem to flash for differing lengths of time, its how they communicate. Something to do with enzymes.) We looked across, prepared to be amazed by these giant bugs.  "Mummy, those are cars." Oops.

Towards the end of the journey after we'd had a good look at a caimen in the road, some raccoons, and some capybara (sadly the boys were asleep by the time all this had happened!) I noticed some fresh droppings on the road ahead.  They looked quite large, which was a hopeful sign.  "Aha", I remarked, "...maybe that could be the droppings from .....a JAGUAR??" 

"No. Eeeets just a cow." Get back in your box Phil.

Guapiacu school visit pictures

We spent 11 days at REGUA, an ecological conservation area in the severely depleted Atlantic Rainforest, 80 kilometres north east of Rio de Janeiro.   It's managed by Nicholas and Raquel Locke, and while we were there, we enjoyed a couple of afternoons at the local school that Raquel helped to establish when her children, now in their twenties, were at primary school age, so that they could get a good education locally.

Louis and Frankie were a little overawed by all the attention at first, but quickly settled, helped no doubt by the very warm reception from the children there.  Quite frankly getting them to attend school in August in the first place was quite an achievement!  We started off in a classroom of children aged between seven and nine where Louis and Frankie told the other children their names and ages, and then repeated in Portuguese, as best they could, the other children's names as they went around the room.

We showed a few slides that gave the children there a picture of life for the boys back home - their school, their friends, the sorts of activities they do - and this gave Louis and Frankie a chance to briefly share a little about their lives (fortunately all translated by Raquel as their English was about as non-existent as our Portuguese!)

There was plenty of time in the playground on the first afternoon and then after a healthy school lunch, they shared a game of dodgeball together, which Louis and Frankie picked up pretty quickly even if Jules and I, although we watched, couldn't quite grasp.

The second afternoon was back to back games for our boys, playing with two separate classes in the playing field - a large garden belonging to a kind neighbour 100 yards down the road.

The Brazilian children were absolutely lovely, and it was amazing even though they couldn't speak a word to each other, you saw camaraderie and friendship emerging even in that short time.  You also witnessed at grass roots level why Brazil have won five World Cups and we've only won one......

Here are a few of the pictures from the school visits.

The Capybara

We were on a walk at REGUA  having a nice time and saw lots of Capybaras getting into the water for a swim.  I said they look like mini hippos, and the next day we saw a family of capybaras on our football pitch.

The capybara is a grazing herbivore, eating mainly grasses and aquatic plants. Capybara dive and may remain underwater for as long as five minutes.

By Louis

Cherry-Head Red-Foot Tortoise

In our B and B in Rio there was a Tortoise called Gaboon.  He mainly lived under the deck chair and he likes leaves and cucumber. Gaboon is a Cherry-Head Red-Foot tortoise which live mostly just in South America.  He is probably very old because these tortoises can live up to 50! Daddy says that 50 is not so old really though. 

By Frankie

The common marmoset

I was lying in my hammock I'd named "Whirlpool Weetabix" at our bed and breakfast in Rio. I saw Patricia the owner feeding bananas to the marmosets. They were tiny and cute and took the banana out of our hands!  The common marmoset is often called the Cotton Eared Marmoset.  They are the only primates other than humans that may suffer from the eating disorder known as Anorexia.

By Louis