In this region of Zapote River there is a beautiful lagoon called Atun Poza, it was here were we spent most of our morning looking for birds and admiring the size of the trees. Later on we paid a visit to the little village on the shore of the lagoon. Here people live in houses built on high columns to avoid the rising waters of the river and the annual flood. These villagers were happy to see us and happy to have some new people to talk to.
The people of this community, which are around 300 including children are the ones that keep this forest with nice clean paths good for the skiffs to move through. Here we discovered new life forms such as medicinal types of ficus trees, birds, and insects. The most impressive part of this outing was this flooded forest with heliconia plants all around. With binoculars in our hands we could spot sloths, parrots, wood creepers, egrets, etc.—it was an exciting morning!
In this forest trees are sources of food while birds, fish, and mammals are seed dispersers. Life here is abundant! Everywhere you look and everywhere you are there is a formidable forest crowded with animals and their particular sounds. Some are birds of prey, others are fish eaters, and a lot of them depend on insects and fruits from the Amazon jungle.
In the afternoon outing we spotted several iconic species of the forests such as: cormorants, black-collared hawks, and best of all plum-throated cotingas! Many types of raptors and great egrets were also seen by all of us, just to mention a few.
What a great day in the Amazon basin!
