San Isidro, Yanayacu and Pucate Rivers
This morning we left after breakfast for our first exploration into the Peruvian Amazon rain forest. Dressed to explore (long pants, long sleeves, rubber boots), we skiffed over to the landing and clambered up the bank and into the green.
This introduction to a “varzea” forest was an important first stop; the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve is made up of almost entirely flood forest, the translation of “varzea.” Half the year, the ground we were walking upon is completely submerged under anywhere from one to ten feet of water. Right now, the forest floor was dry with a bit of mud. We saw some of the important residents (well, they are all important, really) that many folks pay no attention to: leaf-cutter ants, army ants, and the big, humongous “bullet ants.” This last was discovered by an unintentional grabbing of a slender tree trunk. It was a painful reminder of why we don’t touch anything in a rain forest before prior examination!
Numerous palm trees, ceiba trees, water vines, and a liana that smells of intense onion and/or garlic all caught our attention as well as a pointed-nosed leaf frog and delicate mushrooms made me thankful for the macro settings on the camera. The sounds added an unexpected dimension to our visit: white-shouldered antbirds were close and loud, though terribly tricky to see, while overhead black-fronted nunbirds burbled away while yellow-rumped caciques confused us in the distance with their varied sounds.
Back home on the Delfin II, the ship got underway while we all took showers, then participated in a boat drill, listened to a map orientation and finally, in the dining room had an introduction to the captain and his crew before lunch began. After that, however, a siesta had been programed! Down and out until around 3:00p.m., folk slowly started appearing such that at 3:30p.m. we left for our skiff rides up the Pucate and Yanayacu rivers. These rivers, along with the Samiria and Pacaya, constitute the three main drainage systems for the large, five million-acre national reserve. The ride was totally relaxing and effortless, and the results were spectacular: capped herons, Cocoi herons, striated and black-crowned night herons, great egret, cattle egret, Amazon and ringed kingfishers. However the two most exciting of our sightings this afternoon were seeing four of the five species of vultures found in this neck of the Amazon: turkey vulture, black vulture, lesser yellow-headed vulture…and KING vulture! A rare sighting at any time, this individual flew low across the river. Then not so long afterwards, two pairs of scarlett macaws came noisily overhead, apparently talking over a long day between couples.
It had rained up-river just a couple hours before we left in the skiffs, and since the sun was now out, so were the sloths, drying off before nightfall. We almost had to put our cameras on “sport” setting for the male, as he stretched and worked his way into a new position on the branch.
What a delightful first day in the Peruvian Amazon!
