Last time, I showed you ground birds. These, by contrast, live in the trees, as proper birds do.
The White-throated Piping Guan, Pipile grayi, is a handsome chap.
White-throated Piping Guan
I find it surprising that a bird this large (about 69cm long) lives almost entirely in trees, foraging for fruit. It looks like a ground bird, but isn’t. It has a white wattle under its chin:
It is found in a fairly small area, including Eastern Bolivia, Southwest Brazil, and Northern Paraguay. Under pressure from habitat loss and hunting, its population is thought to be in decline, and the IUCN classifies it as Near Threatened. It is still pretty common in the Pantanal, I am glad to say.
Here is a gallery of a few more handsome feathered pinups:
I think you’ve got the picture: the Pantanal is paradise if you like birds, but beware of going with birders if you don’t! You will spend long hours as the sun sets and the cocktail hour beckons, waiting while they admire yet another new species.
The Red-legged Seriema, Cariama cristata, is a delicate ground bird, about three feet high, with pink legs and beak, pale blue eye-shadow and a crest on the bridge of its nose (well, beak). Sort of like a punk mustache.
It wanders around the grasslands feeding on insects, small snakes, even mice and also grains and seeds. When it finds a snake, it kills it by shaking it hard and beating it on the ground.
It is often with its mate:
Occasionally they are in larger groups, like these. The local people say that if one stands on a termite mound, rain is coming.
They do not seem to be endangered, though they are sparse, but they are found across a large area in the grasslands south of the Amazon, from E. Bolivia to the Atlantic. Their habitat may even be increasing, as deforestation creates more of the open areas they like.
Among the large ground birds we saw, my other top favorite is the Bare-faced Curassow, Crax fasciolata, winner of the “Best Hairdo in the Pantanal” contest. Here is the male:
and here is his girlfriend:
The male is up to 85cm long and weighs as much as 2.8Kg, like a big chicken or a very small turkey. They eat mainly fruit, and seeds.
They are probably monogamous, but very little is known about their social lives. Classified as Vulnerable, the Pantanal is one place where they are still fairly common.
Tapirs are very soothing animals. They are placid aquatic herbivores, who browse in the wetlands. The size of a small pony, they have a dapper little crewcut of a mane.
In 2017 I posted about a tapir that I saw in the Amazon Basin rainforest in Ecuador. Here in the open grasslands of the Southern Pantanal the experience was very different. In this ecosystem, they are strictly nocturnal, probably because they feed out in the open, and the jaguars would be a threat. In the daytime they sleep in the forests. At Caiman Lodge they are just starting to monitor them and understand more about their range and lifestyle. They estimate that the ranch is home to between 100 and 250 tapirs, but they are secretive, so this a guess. We saw two.
The first was a tagged male that we stumbled upon by chance, at night, feeding in the wetlands.
The next day we saw an untagged female, who had emerged from the woods in the late afternoon for a cool bathe followed by a semi-submerged nap:
A jacana used it as a convenient island.
She has a baby., which we didn’t see. As it fell dark she began to forage, and we caught her in our lights:
Catching one to tag it is accomplished by baiting this trap with a salt lick in a blue plastic tub. Unable to resist, they are lured in, the door is lowered, and the animal is stuck.
The fierce little white-lipped peccaries also like the salt, and sometimes steal it:
PS The South American tapir, Tapirus terrestris, is up to 2.5 m (8.2 ft) long and an average weight around 250 kg (over 500lb). It stands up to 108 cm (43 in) at the shoulder. They can live up to 40 years, and are sexually mature at about four years old. The IUCN classifies it as Vulnerable, and the Pantanal is at the southern end of its range.
The Jabiru Stork, Jabiru mycteria, is a gigantic bird. Its name means “swollen neck” in Guaraní, and at five feet tall, with a nine foot wingspan, it is the largest flying bird in Central and South America.
The bright red skin at the base of the neck changes color with mood; paler when calm:
darker when excited or threatened:
They mate for life, up to 36 years, and nest high in dead trees, returning to the same nest year after year.
The pair below were not even fazed when their tree toppled in a storm: they just nested on top of the truncated stump. The fact that there is a livestock corral right beneath their nest does not disturb them. Not even the cowboys lassoing the bleating lambs:
However, if random people like us come too close, they glower and hood their wings:
Once the eggs (2 to 5 in all) are laid they tend them carefully,
turning them from time to time.
Both parents take turns to tend the nest, so the shift change gives us a chance to see both together.
After a brief overlap, in which one assumes they pass on a report on the condition of the eggs, and advice on when they next need turning, the outgoing shift takes off:
vast wings beating strongly as it heads off to feed.
They eat frogs, fish, insects, and even small rodents. They coexist comfortably with wood storks and various egrets,
as well as rheas, and other large birds. This one nearly landed on a rhea, a large flightless bird up to 1.7m (5′ 7″) tall.
A quiet yoga pose is the image that remains with me.
PS Here is a photo of a pair of the Greater Rheas, Rhea americana, distant relatives of ostrich and emu.
and a close-up.
The IUCN classifies it as Near Threatened, with its population in decline.
*My title owes apologies to Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, here translated into Portuguese by August de Campos::
JAGUADARTE
Era briluz. As lesmolisas touvas roldavam e reviam nos gramilvos. Estavam mimsicais as pintalouvas, E os momirratos davam grilvos.
“Foge do Jaguadarte, o que não morre! Garra que agarra, bocarra que urra! Foge da ave Fefel, meu filho, e corre Do frumioso Babassura!”
Ele arrancou sua espada vorpal e foi atras do inimigo do Homundo. Na árvore Tamtam ele afinal Parou, um dia, sonilundo.
E enquanto estava em sussustada sesta, Chegou o Jaguadarte, olho de fogo, Sorrelfiflando atraves da floresta, E borbulia um riso louco!
Um dois! Um, dois! Sua espada mavorta Vai-vem, vem-vai, para tras, para diante! Cabeca fere, corta e, fera morta, Ei-lo que volta galunfante.
“Pois entao tu mataste o Jaguadarte! Vem aos meus braços, homenino meu! Oh dia fremular! Bravooh! Bravarte!” Ele se ria jubileu.
Era briluz.As lesmolisas touvas Roldavam e relviam nos gramilvos. Estavam mimsicais as pintalouvas, E os momirratos davam grilvos.
Just to remind you, here is the original. Perhaps ‘Beware the Jubjub bird’ would have been a better title, but Jabiru and Jabberwock have the same rhythm.
The Jabberwocky, from Through the Looking Glass , 1871, by Lewis Caroll:
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy.
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
Armadillos are very strange mash-ups. The small ones are like guineapigs with scales, and the bigger ones remind me slightly of armored capybaras. Here is a six-ringed armadillo:
Despite the scales, they are mammals, and suckle their young. This one is a female, if you look carefully you can see her teats.
They are anteaters, and at Baia das Pedras the pampas were littered with small piles of earth where they had been digging for their dinner. The larger holes were their dens.
The biggest of all is the Giant Armadillo, a nocturnal recluse about whom little is known. They are now the object of study for Gabriel (right) and Carlos, a visiting researcher from Colombia:
Our hostess, Rita, has lived on her farm for her entire life, and had never seen one until the research team appeared. Over the past ten years they have been tagging and monitoring about forty of these animals to learn more about their range and their habits.
They start by finding one of the huge mounds they excavate for their dens, where they sleep the day away:
Then they put a trap over the hole, and when the animal emerges at dusk it is caught, and crated.
Early the next morning, they set up a field operating theatre on the tailgate of a pickup. Here is the armadillo, asleep in the crate:
He is anaethsetized:
After ten minutes his vital signs are checked:
and he is weighed, all 35Kg of him:
He is given a good scrubbing so his belly is clean for the upcoming procedure, and then he is lifted onto the tailgate operating table, and measured, totaling 1.35m from nose to tail:
The veterinary team are masked and gloved, and then they prep for the implantation of a tiny transmitter under the skin of the armadillos belly. He is clearly a male!
The spectacular claws are for all that digging. Next he is fitted with a blood pressure cuff:
Then they attach a heart monitor, before the sterile field is made ready, followed by a small incision, into which a tiny transmitter is inserted. It will work for several years.
Separately, they attach a more short-lived external GPS tracker to his carapace, because it has a larger range. “Carlos” was named after one of the team members, and here he is five days later, none the worse for wear:
and showing his enormous claws. You can still see the water mark where his belly was scrubbed clean, but his back retains years of accumulated dirt!
Thanks to Gabriel for the last two photos.
Being permitted to watch this highly skilled team at work was a great privilege, and a huge piece of luck that they caught an armadillo while we were there. We are among a select few: here are our friends Jane and Stephen with documentary proof of their presence.
PPS: Here is a link to the project that monitors Giant Armadillos.
Eyes on the Wild 