July 11, 2024
We flew in a small plane from Porto Jofre to Casa Caiman around 10 in the morning. Before that we enjoyed a leisurely morning at Porto Jofre.
As we headed to breakfast, the birds were already up and about.
At breakfast, there was a capuchin monkey trying to get in the door to get some bananas.
After breakfast when Brent and Fabi toured the grounds another capuchin monkey was helping itself to the fruit of an acuri palm. The capuchin monkey was named for the Capuchin monks because its little black cap of fur on top if its head looked like the cowls the monks wore.
More birds put in an appearance. The vermilion fly catcher loves to eat flies, bees, and other insects. It will cough up the parts it can't digest as little pellets.
The short-crested fly catcher also snacks on flying insects and will defend its territory and nest from other birds.
The yellow-billed cardinal is actually a kind of tanager and not very closely related to members of the cardinal family.
The sayaca tanager enjoys eating fruits, leaves, flowers and their nectar. It will clean off its beak by rubbing it on a branch.
This South American great horned own had not yet gone to sleep for the day. It is different from other sub-species of great horned owl because it has amber, not yellow, eyes.
They enjoyed a final sight of the capuchin monkey before meeting me for our flight to Casa Caiman. We were leaving from the Porto Jofre airstrip.
We flew in a small plane to Casa Caiman. Both resorts have their own airfields to facilitate travel through the Pantanal. The flight amazing. We got a birds eye view of the Cuiaba river we had been exploring.
Then we had views of the Pantanal landscape. It started with small forested areas.
We could see the bare areas around the forested parts where they had created fire breaks. Fire is one of the main dangers in the Pantanal right now as it has been very dry for the past few years.
We did see more evidence of water and the wetlands of the Pantanal as we flew south.
We saw both fresh water and salt water lakes.
The fresh water lakes had green growth along their banks.
The salt water lakes were whitish and were barren on their banks, although forested areas still surrounded them.
As we got closer to Casa Caiman we saw evidence that much of the Pantanal is privately owned ranchland (including Casa Caiman itself).
It was sad to say goodbye to Fabi at the end of the flight. He had been a wonderful guide. If we return to the Pantanal to see it in the rainy season, we will definitely hire him as our guide. He had some great suggestions of other places to visit.
Caiman is the fanciest of the lodges we’ve been too. They likely modeled it after the African safari lodges with lots of luxurious communal rooms. They greeted us with hot towels and had a personal tour of the lodge and the room. The food is also delicious and nicely presented. We even had a pizza night for dinner.
After dinner, we went on an evening safari ride. We saw an anteater right as we were leaving the lodge area. It was still light out, so we got some great views. If you look closely, you can see how it bends its front feet, so it doesn't walk on its sharp claws.
The chopi blackbird eats insects, seeds and fruits. One of its favorite foods is the coconut of the Moriche palm tree.
A crab-eating fox crossed our path. It was great to see one of these nocturnal animals while it was still daylight.
We got word that a female jaguar had been spotted with a cow carcass so we sped onward, passing the cattle of caiman as we went through pastures to our destination.
Before long we had found Kwara. She had killed the cow herself whereas the jaguars yesterday had dragged up the carcass of a cow floating on the river. When we first arrived, she was resting. The collar on her does not mean she is a tame jaguar. Oncafari collars some of the jaguars in the reserve so they can track their movements and study them. The markings on Kwara seemed similar to Gaia's. I wonder if they might be related as jaguar rosettes, although all different, keep some genetic similarities.
A committee of vultures hung out waiting for her to leave. (A group of vultures is a committee in the trees, a wake when feeding, and a kettle when flying.)
She started opening her mouth with her tongue hanging out which hinted she might be on the move soon.
We weren't disappointed, she scratched an itch,
Then got up and approached the carcass.
This was a very fresh carcass and we could pretty clearly see her eating it.
Notice how she frequently licks the carcass. A jaguar's tongue is very rough so it helps to soften the skin so she can eventually tear through it.
The sun set as we were watching her.
As it got dark, the guides turned on their spotlights so we could still see.
Eventually we left to see what nocturnal animals we might find. We found some pampas deer (but no decent picture) and more crab-eating foxes (although there aren't many crabs to eat in the Pantanal).
We also found some adorable baby caiman.
Then we headed back to lodge for the night.
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