We awoke at 04:30 and set off on our morning drive not long after, hoping to encounter something on the road before sunrise. It was a fairly uneventful drive with a few Tapete seen and a couple of Crab-eating Fox before light broke. Fortunately the standout mammal of the morning came an hour after sunrise, when we spotted a distant Jaguarundi slowly crossing the road ahead of us. Although distant, it was my third cat of the trip!
The birding itself was not bad either, with a
couple of migrant species in Alder Flycatcher and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo that
crossed the road in front of our car. Lined Seedeater was new for the trip,
although it did not show particularly well, and it was nice to see another
Pale-crested Woodpecker here.
At 10:00 we returned to the room as the day
warmed up to see out the heat. After a nap and some lunch we went for a short
drive on the road north of the village but the habitat was quite disturbed.
That said, we still had a few nice birds, most notably the first Black-banded
Woodcreeper of the trip, only my second ever. It was in the same tree as a
Great Rufous Woodcreeper, allowing for a nice comparison between the two
species.
At the end of the afternoon we drove a few
kilometres on the road heading east out of town but saw nothing new and after
an hour we turned around and went back to the productive road heading west
along the north edge of the national park. Once again the evening proved
reasonably productive, although there were no new birds and mammals were
limited to the usual Chaco Mara and guinea pigs.
That was until 30 kilometres down the road,
when it was almost dark, and we heard the commotion from the roadside
vegetation which could only mean monkeys. After peering through the vegetation
as best we could, we finally set eyes on at least three Pale Titi Monkeys, one
of the parks most iconic mammal species and a worthy reward for our efforts
today. The commotion that attracted us to them turned out to be a Great Horned
Owl that had landed in the tree, and once it moved off the animals fell silent.
The night drive was decent but unspectacular.
We had brief views of a Tapir before it entered the vegetation and we had great
views of three Crab-eating Foxes and two Tapete but otherwise quite limited. A
Rufous Nightjar sat on the side of the road was a nice surprise after regularly
hearing the species but not yet getting proper views of one. We returned to
base at 21:30 and after doing my notes, went straight to sleep
No comments:
Post a Comment