Today we arrived on Ponte Branca late. Marina needed to return to her activities at the University and we dropped her off at the bus station to say good bye. Once we arrived at Ponte Branca to carry on our work we found good and fresh ocelot tracks. The best part: the track followed the trails where we fixed the traps.

Fresh ocelots tracks on our trails.

Our mission there was to fix our stations at the east part of the forest.

Here we go…

After a few minutes in the forest we had an unexpected not-exactly-friendly meeting with one animal that was just relaxing on the ground in a sunspot: a jararaca (Bothrops jararaca). A session of pictures, and as they say: Live and let live…

A not-so-friendly snake on our way. Or was that us in its way?

We left our not-so-friendly acquaintance waiting for a more distracted and of course smaller mammal to cross its way and - who knows - maybe become a meal. Let’s continue our journey. It was a good day to find animals. After the jararaca meeting and two stations up and running, we started to hear a very characteristic sound in the trees. There they were: the noisy brown-capuchin-monkeys (Cebus nigritus).

A brown-capuchin-monkey hiding from us!

Always curious and smart, they stayed a little before they went back into the forest looking for more interesting stuff than a group of humans in their territory. To finish our day, we saw four blue-and-yellow-macaws on a palm!!! These animals bring life to the forest! It’s just a privilege to have to opportunity to watch these animals in the wild. They used to be captured in all its range to become pets because of their beauty, which makes it almost impossible to find them now in some regions of the country. I tried my best to get good photos, approaching the palm step by step. But it wasn`t enough… they flew away, passing right in front of me, and – because of slow camera adjustments – I lost one of the greatest opportunities to have a wonderful picture. As they say: you win some, you lose some…

The blue-and-yellow-macaws at Ponte Branca.

Flying away

I am posting on old field companions, despite the delay, because I do think it is important to post chronologically. Right now, since May 19th, I have been working as a Teaching Assistant at the Summer Ecosystem Experiences for Undergraduates (SEE-U), promoted by CERC – Center of Environmental Research and Conservation by New York`s Columbia University . I need to say that it has been a great experience in both my professional and personal lives.

See you Wednesday!

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