Rio Dorado and Rio Zapote
As the sun rose over the Ucayali River we found ourselves at the entrance to a small creek leading off the main river. It quickly became apparent that we had found an interesting location for wildlife, as several groups of pink river dolphins, tucuxi (aka grey dolphin) and neotropic cormorants were fishing nearby. The air was alive with birdsong and calls, and four red-and-green macaws did a beautiful flypast.
We boarded skiffs and set off to explore the creek. The next couple of hours were a non-stop succession of wildlife sightings, with a number of three-toed sloths, groups of squirrel monkeys and brown capuchin monkeys. Add to this the usual plethora of birds and it was hard to know where to look next.
We relocated during the heat of the day further up the Ucayali and by mid-afternoon the Delfin II was tied up (to a riverside tree) at the entrance to another small side creek. Our afternoon outing set out with the mission to stay out until after dark to search for nocturnal creatures. While this may have been the ultimate intention, we had some time before it got dark and initially enjoyed a refreshing rain forest shower and then had good success at finding mammals — three-toed sloth, squirrel and monk saki monkeys. The mammal success continued through the transition period from day to night with large numbers of bats appearing over the jungle. As night fell night birds began to put in an appearance, with pauraques (a type of nightjar) and the boat-billed heron. As the name suggests, this is a bird with a bizarre bill shape, designed for catching the main diet of frogs and fish. We also had brief looks at a caiman, the eyes reflecting the light of our spotlight in the same way as we have red-eye in a photo taken with a camera flash. Another diverse day in the Amazon finished — our best day for mammals, so far...
