This was my first steps on top of the Huanchaca Plateau (Caparú Meseta), and what a welcome! The deer just looked at me and went on chewing for some time, and then leisurely went away. Apparently it did not get our scent, and without it it I was perhaps just another animal? Altitude: 821 metres.
During my 2 weeks in the Bolivian Amazon I only had this very brief encounter. They are always on the move, so dependent on the size of the group they can pass you in less than a minute. As the encounter happens in a dense jungle and I’m looking high up in the canopy, it’s [...]
A very common mammal, and perhaps the most abundant in Madidi. My trip out of Madidid provided the most sightings, and several resting as seen here. This is another family a little further down Tuichi River.
I haven’t been able to find any resource describing which of these two distinctly different facial patterns are male and female, but I assume the first one is an older male. They are both in the same group, so I doubt there are two different species of Cebus. This one seems to have lost a [...]
When a group of 20-30 monkeys rush through the canopy, it’s like swarm of sounds and movements. You mostly see some feet, tails, or furry bodies jump in and out of sight. Knowing exactly where they will jump is one thing, another is to actually catch the entire body in flight! A zoom lens would [...]
I heard one or more groups every day, but seeing them was another matter. This was my closet encounter during my stay.
Most of the time you hear but don’t see the monkeys, as they are in the canopy, high above you in a very sharp background – the sky. If you’re lucky you get a few glimpses, and even more lucky if you can get a clear shot between the leaves. This was a quite large [...]
Even though I was in a canoe on the Chalalan lake, and these monkeys were moving through the trees next to the lake, it was very hard to get clear views and shots of these agile and fast moving monkeys. Fortunately some could not resist eating on their way to the roost, and among those [...]
Yum-yum! If the monkeys are busy eating, they can be quite difficult to spot, and only when they move you’ll have an idea of their location by the branches moving. But still they are mostly hidden in the foliage. This one was happy to sit in the open, which I think could be dangerous as [...]
This was my first mammal sighting in the Madidi National Park, and was very promising as this was just a few hundred metres after crossing the park’s border (the GPS coordinates are from a bit further upstream, as my camera did not have GPS lock here)! That said, it seemed to be in very poor [...]
My first sight of this group was a couple lying in the dirt road! Completely chilled and did not bother to get up before the car was quite close. Even then they just leisurely moved on into the vast landscape. A hunted herd would be extremely stressed and run far away! The northern and southern [...]
My first and only sighting the this species, and I was in luck as this species is hunted to such an extent that it’s now red listed as vulnerable by IUCN. How much so became clear as my driver ran up to the animal and looked at it more as a food item than an [...]
If it doesn’t move, the Viscacha is near impossible to see. The color is so similar to the rocks, sand and shrubs, that it’s only patience or luck that makes you see it. This was on my way out of the Sajama National park, and it was not far away from the car, and did [...]
Leaving the Sajama National Park, I had the first sighting of the northern Vicuna. They were gracing on the top of this hill, and was not particularily disturbed by the car or my camera – a good sign that they are not hunted in the park. Altitude: 4251 metres.
This was the only encounter I had with this species. You may see them anywhere, and in this case I didn’t have to go more than a few metres from my cabana. Their sounds are high pitched and short burst: Sound recording courtesy of bioacoustica.org.
This monkey has inspired the Anangu Quichua community, as this is the logo of Napo Wildlife Center! They are quite small – up to 24 cm/9.4 inches from nose to the beginning of the tail, and weigh up to about 500 grams / 1.1 pounds They are not disturbed by people watching them from their [...]
The scientific name has several English names attached to it: Red Titi and Dusky Titi, the latter used in the “Napo Wildlife Center’s fauna” booklet. This monkey has an extraordinary morning call – here are two individuals calling (courtesy of Primate Info Net and Di Fiore & Fernandez-Duque):
Many species of monkeys roam the land of Napo Wildlife Center. Best time to see them is when they are foraging for food like here, before 07:00 in the morning! Getting a clear view of them is a totally different matter. This time I was lucky as the clutch of fruit was in the open [...]
The landing on Punta Espinoza is a wide open sandy beach amidst young lavarock, that looks like solidified manure. I saw many sea lion pups here, and this one was the cutest – curious, but mostly into observing. Others were extremely playful and inquisitive, and I felt I had to move out of the way, [...]
The only beach on Genovesa was crowded with sea lions resting in the sun. The fur seal is smaller with a shorter snout and bigger front flippers – which make them much better rock climbers than the sea lions. The fur seal prefers rocky coastline and cliffs with easy access to the deeper ocean and [...]
The only mammal I encountered the short time I was here, and what a friendly guest! It was not wary of humans in any large degree, and just went a couple of metres into the thicket if uncertain, and came back shortly thereafter. A regular! Altitude 2106 metres.