Mission 2 - Week 21 (Pantanal #2)

Continued from Part #1

Different kind of duck ("What's the difference between a duck?")

Tuiuiu with wings spread - didn't get one in flight!

This one posed for us to take the shot.

Horses in the Pantanal have been bred through the years and
can now stay in the water for up to a full year without getting
diseased or infections, etc.

White-necked heron

Another fisher bird, sunning himself. 

Another white-necked heron, I think they should be
called crook-neck...

Pretty sure this is the Ibis.

Got a white-neck in flight, very graceful.

These mid-sized parrots live in huge nests like a community.
One big nest (built around a transformer on a electric pole) was
said to have 50+ birds living in it.

A little Capivara family.  A story about them to come later.

Another nice shot of the hawk.

Cute little young-uns.

Alligator lying in wait.

Still not the last flower shot.

This might be the last one.

So, we found out that these fisher birds come out of the water
and spread their wings to dry them - but the process also makes
the parasites fall out from in between the feathers, so it's really
a cleaning routine as well as drying.

Another one in the parrot family.

Life in the Pantanal is still pretty old-fashioned, as
shown by this fellow and his horse=drawn cart.

Here we are, in front of the Pousada sign - that's where
we stayed this time.  It's the fifth time in the Pantanal,
and this represents the fourth different pousada that we
stayed in.

Butterfly along the trail (Borboleta).

Yellow bellied bird, very cute.

This type of lilly pad is special to the Pantanal, the flower comes
from below and only blooms in the morning - white the first day
then pink the next, then dead the third day.

Still not the last.

But this one might be the last.

This is a Tapir.

OK, who knows how many flower pictures are in here?!

This was a drive-by shot that I didn't think I got.
But I did, luckily.

We went out on a jeep (pickup truck!) safari ride and saw this Marsh Deer (actually
we saw several of them, it was cool and the guide said unusual)

This is the more agressive type of alligator - you can tell
by the yellowish neck color.  Stay away.

Another type of hawk - notice the sharp beak,
and the black talons on the orange-colored feet.

Mom's Tuiuiu and nest

This is a male King Fisher, you can tell by the red
under belly - the female is just white with no red.

OK, there's a story that goes with these three pictures - First
is quite a large alligator sitting out on a little dirt island,
minding his own business... sort of.

Then comes a family of Capivara and they are headed...
Oh no!  They are headed right for the Alligator just lying
there very quietly!

They were moving righty for him when the lead Capivara
spots the gator and stops.  When he stops and grunts, the
kids all high-tail it backwards toward where they came and
the two big guys wait in between to make sure they are safe.
Then they all retreat back away from the gator.

This is also a King Fisher - they come in Green and Blue.

After the safari trip we were headed back when I asked
the guide if we could look for a place to get a picture of
the sunset - it had just started to turn orange.  He had the
driver stop on one of the bridges so that we were up high
and the next pictures are the result.

They sky started turning more and more red, until it was all
in reds and oranges with some yellow in the middle.

Very cool, we had never seen a sunset quite that red throughout.

More little birds posing for a picture on the electric wire.
Yes, they were taking a chance... :)

This is a giant frog.

This is a woodpecker, but instead of being red, it's
yellow, with it's pointed and very durable beak.

Two tuiuius (say that fast three times!) 

We were driving by this guy with his mouth open.  I think
he wanted us to stop for lunch - his lunch!

I got this guy in flight and then looked at it afterward and was just
amazed at the coloring on the wings - notice the diagonal dark brown
coloring across the feathers - very pretty.

This is like the fourth type of hawk that we saw.

You guessed it, yet another King Fisher bird.

This is what our boat trip was like, we wore life preservers
and all nine of us went on one good-sized motorboat.  It was
very pleasant out on the water.

Last picture, I was able to snap this from quite a distance with my
telephoto lens.  It's a Tucan (tucano in Portuguese) - note the big
orange beak with the black tip.  Sorry I couldn't get more of a close-up
shot, but they are hard birds to find and even harder to get a picture of.

Well that's it for the Pantanal and Chapadas pictures, hope you enjoyed them.  We had a wonderful trip - however, I will say this, it is so much nicer to travel with any of you kids!  You are all awesome travelers and wonderful traveling companions.

Love to all,

The Church is True.

Dad and Mom