Jaguars!

I first started my last Pantanal photo tour with a scouting trip in late August to Northern Pantanal, a place where Jaguar sightings are regular. For sure nowhere else on Earth you stand a better chance of seeying one. We (only one boat) actually saw 7 in 3 1/2 days! Pretty amazing huh? Seeying a Jaguar in the wild is a great thrill, I vividly remember when our boat captain pointed to one sitting on the bank of the Piquiri River, just 40 minutes from our start on the first morning. There he was, a big male Jaguar just sitting there, looking at us. My favorite photo of the session was the one below, with the big cat mad at us. Although it seems we were really close, we were actually a good distance away. This was shot with a 600mm from the boat, there’s a slight crop to it too.

The Jaguar is the third largest cat in the world (the largest in the Western Hemisphere). In the Pantanal they feed mainly on capybara, peccaries and caiman (a croc), but livestock from local ranchs also form an important part of their diet. Different from other big cats, which usually kill by suffocating, the jaguar uses its immensely powerful bite to actually instantly crush the skull and brains of their victims! It’s brutal.

It's pretty amazing how their color pattern mixes well with the environment. Its tricky to spot a jaguar from a distance, even if it's out in the open like this one.

I am now developing a photo tour specifically to photograph Jaguars next year. It will be a great itinerary, better than what you find out there.. I guarantee. Stay tuned!

Back from the Pantanal!

Hi guys, I am now back from my 2nd. tour this year to the Pantanal. It was exceptionally dry due to the La Ninã effect in the Pacific Ocean, so for that reason the Rio Negro was very low and some animals that are usually very abundant, like hawks, kingfishers and water birds, were less frequent than usual. But regardless of that we did get some very good shots. In Bonito we made some fantastic shots of the flying Red-and-green Macaws, once again proving that time spent there means several amazing shots.

I am just starting to go through my photos, but so far I really liked this… the motion blur adds life and speed to the image… and believe me, these macaws fly real fast! Where else on Earth do you have the realistic chance of photograhing scenes like this during a short stay? Next years trip is already online.

D700, Nikkor 600mm f/4, 1/80 @ f/10 - ISO 200

Nocturnal predators

If there’s one family of birds that I tend to clearly show more interest than in others (and believe me, that’s a big thing) are the owls. I love them. They all have a lot of character and they show it with facial expressions that we humans can relate to. They silently hunt in the darkness of night, which gives them a sort of mysterious aura.

In many parts of Brazil, and I’d guess in other countries too, owls are associated by more simple people of the interior to bad omen. No wonder you see owls in horror movies, cemetery scenes, etc. They carry that omen all over, even on some of their scientific names, like the Asio stygius, where stygius comes from Styx or River of Styx, a Greek mithological river of the underworld, hence hellish, infernal… “Oaths sworn by it were supremely binding and even the gods feared to break them“. The truth is that owls are only a bad omen to their prey! And humans certainly are NOT in their diet! All owls are carnivorous, feeding on a variety of live prey, from insects taken by the smaller species to fish, crustaceans, rodents and even big birds.

Owls are probably some of the most specialized predators on Earth. Here’s their main virtues:
1) Eyesight – all owls have excellent nocturnal eyesight. Because of the position of the eyes (forward facing), they have great binocular vision, meaning that they can tell distances very accurately. We have binocular vision too, not as precise as an owl, but we do. Do a test, close one eye with a hand and see how you instantly lose the ability to precisely tell the difference between close and far objects. Without it the world essentially becomes 2D, and that’s how non-predator animals see the world.

2) Hearing – owls have an amazing hearing. Experiments with the Barn Owl showed that they can perfectly hear, and locate, the slightest sound produced by a mouse softly walking on a grass field a hundred yards away.

3) Silent flight – special soft feather edging gives all owls an extremelly silent flight. Even the largest of owls makes no sound at all when flapping their broad wings. This helps them approach and attack their wary prey without being noticed.

4) Power – extremelly sharp nails and powerful claws can kill a prey instantly. Sharp beaks help in cutting the flesh.

I spent last weekend guiding a small group of birdwatchers at a private reserve I’m familiar with in the Atlantic Rainforest. On saturday it was a perfect night for owls: clear skies, no wind and a big moon. So as soon as it got dark I started hearing a couple Black-capped Screech-Owls singing. Their song is a level, slow trill up to 18 seconds long. While not particularly rare, this endemic to the Atlantic Rainforest is a difficult bird to photograph, because they always stay inside dense forest. This particular owl was singing just a few meters from me but I wasn’t being able to locate it. Finally after some time I found it, but just for a few seconds. I snapped the (bad) pic below and it flew away not to return again. It just lost interest in my playback.

Black-capped Screech-Owl, dark eyed variation

This night luck wasn’t exactly on my side, but a couple years ago, at the same reserve, I located and photographed an extremely rare species while guiding a couple north-american clients, the Buff-fronted Owl. Very few is known about this small owl and after this photo I never found or heard it again. Who knows, I might never find it again in my lifetime!

Buff-fronted Owl

But I keep on searchiing. My goal is to photograph all brazilian owl species (12 to go, a lot of work!) and then move on to other south american countries.

Wild Atlantic Rainforest

I spent entire last week guiding a photographer to my favorite place in the Atlantic Rainforest, the private reserve Parque do Zizo, located in southern São Paulo State, about 3 hours from my home. The region is where the largest piece of Atlantic Rainforest remains. This is many thousands os square miles of intact, primary rainforest habitat. The private reserve borders a state reserve, which in turn borders another state reserve and so forth, so the whole area is well protected. It’s not unusual at all to see many tracks of large mammals on the trails, like tapirs and even jaguars or pumas, a sure sign that the place is helthy.

On previous visits I have seen and photographed some extremelly rare birds here, just behind the lodge, like the Buff-fronted Owl. This time we didn’t see any real rarity (although we did hear a Pavonine Cuckoo, a new bird to the reserve), but we more than compensated it with some great photos. We did see a huge Black Hawk-Eagle attacking something just behind the lodge, a great scene, but just to fast to be photographed.

One of the waterfalls of the reserve, surrounded by lush vegetation.

This pano was made with 4 images taken with my D700 and Nikkor 24mm f/2.8. It was stitched together by Photoshop CS5, which did and amazing job considering I wasn’t using a pano head (a regular ball head instead).

Olive-green Tanagers

The Olive-green Tanager is a bird always seen high up in the trees, in big monospecific groups. This time however they were coming to the feeder and I was able to set up different perches for them.

Yellow-fronted Woodpecker

Not your usual woodpecker! Besides being amazingly colorful, these guys eat mainly fruits instead of the usual insect larvae and such.

White-necked Thrush

These attractive thrushes are forest inhabitants, never venturing far from it. They are also quite wary, more wary and elusive than the common Rufous-bellied Thrush.

I will post more photos during the week.

Photography workshop in the Atlantic Rainforest

I just got back from a 3-day workshop at the Atlantic Rainforest of SE Brazil, near the town of Ubatuba, at the same place where we are going to for the extension tour of our Pantanal tour next September.

This was a post-processing workshop, focused on Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5, but of course we put a lot of photography in-between the classes. The weather was, quite frankly, horrible. It was drizzling constantly and very cold. At night I think temps got down to around 45º F (7º C). I know… that’s almost pleasant for you guys way up north, but for us tropical creatures, it’s nearly freezing.

But, everything has its positive sides. With the cloudy sky the light was just the way I like for rainforest photography: diffuse, even. Plants were nice and wet and even the drizzle made for interesting shots. This time of the year there is also a shortage of fruit in the forest, so several different species were coming to the feeders to feed on banana, papaya or guava. A banana wouldn’t last more than 15 minutes. So I set-up some natural-looking perches near the covered veranda of our lodge and we all had a very good time photographing these birds (and we kept dry!).

I have ventured into video editing just for fun and made this short clip. The footage was done by a client with a Canon 7D through a 300mm f/2.8 lens, while the photos are mine with my trusty Nikon D700 and Nikkor 600mm f/4 AF-S (some with a 1.4x TC).

Golden-winged Cacique

Cinnamon Tanager

This attractive species almost never visits feeders, so getting a good shot of one is difficult. This time however things were different and we all got good shots.

Brassy-breasted Tanager

This gorgeous little guy (a brazilian endemic) is another bird that never visits feeders. I guess food shortage in the forest is pretty bad this winter, because this guy was coming in all the time.

Blue Dacnis

If you live in a rainforest you just gotta get used with rain.

No fisherman’s tale!

Kingfishers are amazing birds. Like their name suggest, no other bird can catch fish so effectively. In the rich waters of the Pantanal we can find all 5 species of neotropical kingfishers. During our last trip we had a good time photographing these guys from a boat. Kingfishers are usually wary birds, but if you silently approach them from a boat they will let you get very close. So close in fact that sometimes I just could not focus with my 600mm!

The video below shows one of these moments, with a client taking some shots of a Ringed Kingfisher. We use silent electric engines on the boat, so that we can approach and position the boat at the best angles without scaring the bird.

Ringed Kingfisher, female

The Ringed Kingfisher is the largest one. Normally they are very aggressive to intruders, and that includes competition from other kingfishers, but since there are so many fish in the Pantanal rivers they will tolerate other kingfishers around during the dry season.

Amazon Kingfisher, female

The Amazon Kingfisher is a bit smaller and also very common. We saw this whole sequence: the bird dived in the water and caught a small Pacu, a fish far too wide for its throat. It first hit the fish hard against the branch several times to kill it, you can see the fish scales at the branch. Then it proceed to try to fit the fish and swallow it. I thought it wasn’t going to make it but eventually it literally folded the fish in 2 with its powerfull bill and swallowed it whole. A big meal for sure!

Green Kingfisher, male

This one is a much smaller kingfisher, very cute. Comparing to the huge Ringed ones, these guys are tiny. A good way to tell them apart from the Amazon Kingfisher, besides the obvious size difference, are the small white spots on the wing.

Macaw festival

On my Pantanal tours I always include a visit of a few days to a truly fantastic place just south of the Pantanal. This is an impressive natural crater where Red-and-green Macaws nest and roost. But in order to fly out of the deep crater they must fly in circles to gain height, and this means truly amazing opportunities for flight shots! It’s a bird photographers Disneyland, with the difference that here it’s all real 🙂

The history of this place is a great example of good conservation measures that is taking place now in many parts of Brazil. Back in the 70’s and 80’s this crater was used by local people to dump garbage and, its said, even criminals. People used to practice shooting at the macaws and they were all but exterminated of the place. Eventually a good man bought the property (which was worth less than average because of the crater – it occupied what could otherwize be a pasture for cattle) and saw the potential for eco-tourism early on. The semi-deciduous forest around the crater grew back and the macaws started to return. Initially just one single pair, but they were the most important ones, they represented hope.

The place was transformed into a private nature reserve recognized by the brazilian government. This means that it can never be destroyed again, even if eventually the property is bought by somewhere else in the future. Today the days of destruction are long gone, and over 60 pairs of macaws nest there each year, and the number is growing. Many other birds are also present, like Peach-fronted Parakeets, Blue-fronted Parrots, Blue-crowned Motmots, Buff-necked Ibis, Laughing Falcons and many many more.

I’ve got hundreds of flight shots this past trip, but I can’t post right now the best ones because I’m saving them for an upcoming photo contest. So these will have to do for now. All were shot with Nikon D700 and Nikkor 600mm f/4 AF-S.

They usually fly in pairs, but a few times a day all of them fly together. That means over 30 macaws at least, all circling and screaming, a show not to be fortgotten.

Pantanal mornings

I love mornings, the best time of the day. The air is fresh and clean and birds are super active. In the Pantanal this is specially true. You often wake up well before sunrise with the raucous choruses of Chaco Chachalacas, maybe followed by the lodge’s resident Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl somewhere at the garden and then the elusive Collared Forest-Falcon call echoing in the twilight. With the first sun rays showing in the horizon is time for the parrots and macaws to wake up, hundreds of them flying overhead towards their feeding grounds.

This morning the sunrise was quite nice and we shot a few frames with the wide angle lens. This was with a Nikon D700 and Nikkor 24mm f/2.8.

A few minutes later I found this Rufescent Tiger-Heron hunting for breakfast at the same wetland. I slowly approached it with a 600mm on and took some pics.

Otter antics

The sinuous Rio Negro in the Pantanal is inhabited by 2 species of river otters: the famous Giant River Otter and the less famous Neotropical Otter. They are both extremelly agile in the water, being able to swim very very fast, submerging at a place an resurfacing some 100 yards downriver in a matter of few seconds. While their giant counterparts are usually in groups, the smaller Neotropical Otter hunts alone.

We followed this Neotropical Otter a while downriver, with silent electric motors. Eventually it caught a fish and went to the shore to eat it – our best chance for photos!

We were able to get very close and get some good shots.

Back from the Pantanal

Hi guys, I’m now back at the office from the first Pantanal photo tour this year. It was success, a great group and we all got some excellent shots. I will be posting some pics on the following days and I’m already couting the days for our second tour in September. There’s one last spot for this trip, so contact me if you have interest!

D700, Nikkor 600mm f/4, 1/60 @ f/8, ISO 200

The caiman pic above was done after an early morning of searching for Giant River Otters. We did see them but because of the fact that they were with a newly born baby, they were much more wary than usual and would not tolerate an approach. By september they should much more confinding and getting good pics should be no problem. On this morning we did get some great shots of a feeding Neotropical Otter though, which is often more difficult to find them their giant counterparts.

But anyway, back to the caiman above. We stopped at this nice fine sand beach for an “in the field” breakfast. Soon a couple caimans approached and I noticed how the trees were reflecting nicely on the water. I quickly set my tripod and lowered my ISO to 200 to drop my shutter speed to 1/80, enough to capture a bit of the river water flowing alongside the caimans head, creating a quite nice pattern. Photo done, back to the cakes, home-made breads and fresh juices.