On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Send in your Paris pics if you have them. Photos for Springtime in Paris don’t have to be Spring photos – it’s just that we will be featuring the photos as a series in the springtime. Plus, I thought Springtime in Paris had a nice ring to it.
On the Road: Week of April 5 (5 am)
Albatrossity – Brazil 2011, part 2
evap – Myanmar, December 2016, Part 1
?BillinGlendaleCA – — Scheduled, Classic edition
JanieM – China, Part 1/8
way2blue – Isla Bastimentos, Panama
? And now, part 2 of Albatrossity’s 2011 trip to Brazil. Such amazing creatures, and the Scarlet Ibis is amazing!
Albatrossity
The second half of our 2011 trip to Brazil was spent near the mouth of the Amazon, in the city of Belem and on the island of Marajó, a delta island that is larger than the state of Maryland, or approximately the size of Switzerland. But before we get to those, I will add a couple of images from our time near Manaus.
One of the creatures that we all wanted to see was a sloth. And we did see quite a few, including one mom with baby. She did not get out in the open for a family portrait, but this guy did, and you can see that is a three -toad sloth, specifically the Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Bradypus variegatus), which is the most widespread sloth species.
Insects are abundant in the rain forest, but many are quite camouflaged, and most are difficult to see in the low light. This young preying mantis made a ghostly appearance beside the boardwalk, however, so I snapped a picture of his morning calisthenics ritual.
On to Belem! This is an amazing colonial-era city (founded in 1616), and was also the port city for the rubber boom of the 19th century. It actually is not on the Atlantic, but rather sits about 100 km upstream on the Pará River. But the Amazon is vast; ocean-going vessels can easily navigate upriver to Manaus (1000 miles) and even to Iquitos, Peru (2300 miles). In comparison, ocean-going vessels on the Mississippi can only get as far as Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The amount of water flowing in the Amazon is simply indescribable; everybody needs to see it in order to believe it!
We spent a day and a half in Belem, including some time at a local zoo-botanical park that had a sloth rescue center. Sloths are commonly orphaned, often when the mother gets killed by a vehicle. Fortunately they are also relatively easy to feed and care for; they spend most of the day napping! The students got to see several baby sloths, and even hold them. Here is my daughter with one of the orphans; they do like to cuddle!
Other highlights of that day included some impressive birds. Here is a Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber), stirring up the water to find some food.
The Jabiru (Jabiru mycteria) is a very large and impressive stork found throughout much of South America. The name is derived from a Guarani word that means “swollen neck”. And indeed it is! In addition to the impressive physiognomy, this bird is huge, standing about 5 ft. tall.
The Southern Lapwing (Vanellus chilensis) is also found throughout much of South America, although not in the Amazon rainforest. It, like the northern version, is raucous and gregarious. It also comes with red bony spurs at the bend of the wing, which are apparently used quite effectively in combat with other lapwings, or in defending the nest from predators.
White-faced Whistling-ducks (Dendrocygna viduata) are handsome little waterfowl, and are found not only in South America, but also in much of sub-Saharan Africa.
From Belem we took a ferry trip of about 2 hours to get to Marajó. The island is not particularly populous, being devoted mostly to ranches that raise water buffalo. It is almost directly on the equator, so it is easy to get sunburned (as some of us learned in dismay). We stayed in the town of Soure, in a lovely posada whose owner was originally from France, so the food was an excellent mix of French and Brazilian cuisine. My daughter’s birthday occurred while we were there, and they made a lovely birthday flan to celebrate. There was also a pick-up soccer game going on nearby, where this impressive water buffalo kept trying to join in.
I don’t have many pics of birds or wildlife from Marajó; it has been occupied by humans for a long time. And one of our long walks was punctuated by one of the most amazing thunderstorm/downpours I have ever been caught in; it probably dumped 5 inches of water on us in less than 30 minutes. I left my camera at the hotel since the chance of thunderstorms was announced before we left. So here is a rainbow over the fishing boats at Soure. A beautiful way to end that day, and our time in Brazil in 2011.
eclare
That scarlet ibis is fantastic! But the three toed sloth is closer to my spirit animal.
I saw the Amazon in Peru, taking off from Iquitos, and like you wrote, the volume of water is just astounding. Plus there was every shade of green under the sun.
John Revolta
That is one handsome duck. It seems strange though for the same species to be in S. America and Africa. Is this unusual?
Albatrossity
@John Revolta: I am not an expert on ducks of Africa and South America, but as far as I know, this is the only example of an extant duck species found on both of those continents. Other species of whistling-ducks are found across the tropics, including Indonesia and Australia, but I don’t think any of those are as widespread as this one.
Nor does it seem to be known how they got from one continent to the other, and which direction the migration was. Phylogenetically, this species is closely related to other species in the Neotropics, so it is probable that they originated in South America and got to Africa somehow at some time. But I asked those questions when I saw them in Africa, and nobody could give me an answer. There are instances of birds (e.g. Cattle Egrets) making that jump in the other direction, from Africa to South America, but that is also not very common!
Rob
There are two other duck species found in both South America and Africa. The Fulvous Whistling-Duck is also found in Central & North America as well as in part of southern Asia. The Southern Pochard is the other species; it is confined to South America and Africa.
PS the photos are great!
Albatrossity
@Rob: Thanks! Do you know how the White-faced Whistling-ducks got to another continent, and when? It’s something I’ve wondered about for years!
Minstrel Michael
I was in Belem about ten years before you were, with my then-wife (who was the Portuguese speaker– we did half a dozen Brazil trips together, and then I went one last time to throw her ashes into the ocean off “our” beach). She found this amazing little adventure, a boat tour to “Isla dos Papagallos,” a particular island in the Belem delta where a million parrots call home. We woke up at 4AM to take a taxi to the docks, then a boat trip half an hour out to that island, and it was still dark. Just as dawn started to break in the east, the birds started to caw and flap their wings. As the light grew, we could see this not very metaphorical tornado of parrots climb up in a spiral and, having attained cruising altitude, branch off in pairs (apparently parrots are very good at pair bonding) unto their various destinations– some toward the city where they could scavenge from trash cans, some to predate the other islands or waterways. It lasted about an hour, at the end of which it was full daylight.
They took us after that to another island, where there were some human settlers living in their handmade shacks, which were the most infrastructure the silt of these islands would support. I remember tamarins screeching at our invasion of “their” turf. The ultimate perk was when our guide chopped down a large fruit off a small tree, cut it into slices, and passed it around. The flesh looked like honeydew melon with more iridescence, and it tasted rather like honeydew marinated in chocolate syrup. Yes, it was a cacao tree!
If I can ever find my own pictures, I’ll post them.
eclare
@Minstrel Michael: I’m so sorry about your wife. The trip sounds wonderful!
Mary G
What a wonderful experience. Sloths always look stoned to me.
Elizabird
@ Minstrel Michael: What a wonderful description of the trovoada dos papagallos (storm of parrots)! We saw a reverse event elsewhere in Brazil, hundreds of parrots arriving at an enormous sinkhole to roost for the night. Dave, did you get any decent photos of that? As I recall, the light wasn’t fantastic.
evap
stunning pictures, as always. What a great start to the day!
Rob
@Albatrossity:
I don’t know. White-faced Whistling-Ducks probably dispersed fairly recently because the two populations aren’t classified as subspecies.
cope
These are wonderful pictures, thank you for showing them to us.
When I was young I was really only interested in visiting mountains and deserts. Now, perhaps because we have survived over 30 years of living in Florida, I am much more interested in tropical rain forests and other hot, wet climes. As I am unlikely to ever visit these places, these shots and others you have posted give me a chance to do so.
Steve Crickmore
@Mary G Not a sloth bear but a regular three toed sloth https://fb.watch/4GQEU6JDaK/
J R in WV
Love these tropical pictures, great wildlife, great rainbow, water buffalo, etc, etc.
After a couple of heat exhaustion type events years go, I can no longer easily deal with hot wet climate conditions, and so seeing great photos from the Amazon (Amazing-zon) is probably as close as I’ll ever get.
Sloth is my spirit animal. I can sleep a whole lot!
Thanks for sharing. Great stuff!
WaterGirl
@Minstrel Michael: I hope you find your photos! Perhaps this post will be your inspiration.
Very sorry to hear that you lost your wife.
Elma
I have many pictures of Lapwings from a truck stop along a major highway in Chile. Our tour group was going by bus to a winery and made a comfort stop. The birds were all over the place, in all the grassy areas. Since nothing like that ever shows up in northern Wisconsin, I thought they were very cool, and kept snapping away. No pic turned out as well as Albatrossity’s.
4D*hiker
Great pics and descriptive text, as usual. Thanks!
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Fabulous photos and informative text. I knew the Amazon was big, but those facts put it into perspective. Thanks! I love the Scarlet Ibis, and the Lapwing and the Duck are also great. And the stork is amazing! Sloths are very cool. I’ve read that their claws are quite sharp.
Albatrossity
@Elizabird: We did visit the sinkhole that is home to thousands of parrots, near Campo Grande in Mato Grosso do Sul. It was dusk, light was terrible, and the parrots were for the most part too far away for decent pictures. So I just enjoyed the spectacle. And it really was wonderful.
I would love to go back and see it at sunrise, as the parrot pairs come out of their roosts and head out for the day!
way2blue
These are delightful Albatrossity. Thanks. Again.