Brazil Pantanal Trackers- In Search of the Jaguar 09

[kittykat23uk]

Hi all,

 

Here is a link to my latest trip report along with another link to my Flickr Gallery

 

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=151099

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8773601@N03/s...57622174180742/

 

Happy to answer any questions!

 

Jo

[Atravelynn]

The chaos at Sao Paulo is typical, I think, along with the panic that the line won't advance in time to make your flight. They were plucking people out of line for upcoming flights on my last trip and thank goodness plucked me.

 

I thought the capuchin was winking at you. Wonder what happened to the poor guy to lose an eye. A jagarundi is a tremendous sighting! You are too kind to refer to the chachalacas call as dulcet.

 

Looking forward to reading more later.

[kittykat23uk]

Glad you like it so far Lynn.

[Atravelynn]

Tremendous luck with the jaguar! And tremendous photos as a result! Boats crowding around is troubling. Are there many places to stay in Port Jofre so there could be lots of people?

 

I loved Rio Clara. How many nights were you there? Then you camped in Porto Jofre? Can you give me a summary of your itinerary again? Or put in a link

 

Reading all of the birds you saw is like being united with old friends.

 

Sorry about your camera and it happened on your birthday? That's just not right. But you must have had a backup or Ian came to the rescue.

[madaboutcheetah]

Lovely photos!!! Wow - the Jaguar is incredible!!!

 

The pantanal is such a loooooooong way to go from India, so hopefully one day i will eventually make it.

 

Lynn,

If you read this, how long a flight is it from the USA? and what is the time difference?

[kittykat23uk]

Tremendous luck with the jaguar! And tremendous photos as a result! Boats crowding around is troubling. Are there many places to stay in Port Jofre so there could be lots of people?

 

I'm not sure exactly how many lodges there are around Porto Jofre, possibly half a dozen and probably about another dozen between Pocone and Porto Jofre I guess. Not all will be primairly for the Jaguars though. We probably had around half a dozen boats at the most at one sighting (the female on the day we saw 3) but of course we also had the two jaguars all to ourselves. It gets to be a problem if the cat can't focus its attention in one direction, it makes them feel penned in sometimes.

 

 

I loved Rio Clara. How many nights were you there? Then you camped in Porto Jofre? Can you give me a summary of your itinerary again? Or put in a link

 

Yep Its a lovely lodge, so is Porto Jofre Lodge, and Piuval.

 

Reading all of the birds you saw is like being united with old friends.

 

Sorry about your camera and it happened on your birthday? That's just not right. But you must have had a backup or Ian came to the rescue.

 

Thanks, but the camera still worked actually, and the zoom is good enough not to have been too disadvantaged without the TCON. Its just the zoom lever that is a bit rougher to handle than before.

 

 

Ok so here we go:

 

August 14th depart Uk

August 15th Arrive Cuiaba drive to Rio Claro Lodge Pocone overnight Rio Claro Lodge

August 16th Rio Claro

August 17th Rio Claro

August 18th Drive Porto Jofre, Overnight Porto Jofre Lodge

August 19th Porto Jofre to campsite- overnight Camp

August 20th Camping

August 21st Camping

August 22nd Camping

August 23rd Break camp and head back to Porto Jofre. Overnight Porto Jofre lodge

August 24th Drive to Rio Piuval lodge overnight at Piuval

August 25th Overnight Piuval

August 26th Drive Cuiaba fly home

August 27th Arrive home.

 

The first flight was 12 hours, then another 4 hour transfer from Sao Paolo then another 4- 5 hours by coach home!

[kittykat23uk]

Lovely photos!!! Wow - the Jaguar is incredible!!!

 

The pantanal is such a loooooooong way to go from India, so hopefully one day i will eventually make it.

 

Lynn,

If you read this, how long a flight is it from the USA? and what is the time difference?

 

Thanks! It was a long way from the UK too! Worth it though.

[Atravelynn]

Kitty,

The troupial obliged by landing in some very attractive foliage. Nice going with the helmeted manakin! It seems the jaguars were as eager as you for the rain to stop because you were able to find them whenever the raindrops ceased. Odd that it was raining this time of year. How nice you had your own private jaguar to cap off the trip. Thank you for sharing the information on the church fart. It almost sounds like the name of a bird.

 

Hari,

The flight time from Chicago is about 11 hours to Sao Paulo and the Pantanal is an hour later than Central time when we are on daylights savings. What I suggest you do Hari, is the spotted cat tour. Stop in Africa for a while and look for cheetah, maybe in Botswana, and then head over to Brazil in search of jaguar. Maybe even an ocelot.

 

 

One more thing on the weather. You may have missed the worst of it. I see there are heavy rains and flooding in Argentina and Southern Brazil. Sao Paulo had some major damage.

[kittykat23uk]

That's climate change for you!

[Atravelynn]

I finally checked out the photo link. Nice that you got a photo of the tyra to go along with the sighting. So many jaguars and really good poses. So many birds too and even lily pads.

[kittykat23uk]

Hiya, thanks. I've uploaded a newer version to my site. Takes a while to load all the pics because they are bigger than the bird forum version.

 

http://www.kats-korner-uk.com/Brazil2.html

[TonyQ]

@@kittykat23uk

I tracked down this report because of your mention of your trip

I have then been to your website to look at the detail

What a fantastic trip. You give a wonderful flavour of travelling and convince of the value of travelling with your own guide

The photography is wonderful

Obviously the jaguar sightings and photographs are brilliant - it is hard to imagine better - but throughout the whole report the variety and quality of bird sightings is amazing.

(You refer to your camera mishap but still got great pictures afterwards. What sort of lens length were you using for the bird photos?)

 

This report will certainly have a big impact on our planning!

Thank you

[kittykat23uk]

Thanks @@TonyQ all the photos I took on this trip were taken with a Panasonic fz18. I also had an Olympus teleconverter on it, but that broken when I slipped over!