It’s raining cats and
dogs.
We set off at half
past four and drive through darkness and fog along gravel and paved roads,
passing through small towns still asleep. The urban landscape is much more
pleasant without advertisements and neon signs.
At the Amagusa Reserve a group of people has already gathered on the lodge veranda with binoculars and cameras. There are both obsessive photographers and meticulous list-keepers. Around the feeding table there is constant fluttering and flashing, and new species names are being called out all the time. It’s impossible to get a proper look at anything. There are huge numbers of tanagers, some thrushes and euphonias, two species of woodcreeper, brown hens on a pile of maize, and a group of parrots with their beaks smeared with banana. Night insects have been attracted to a white sheet, and birds pick them off selectively as if from a buffet. Larger insects have to be bashed against a tree before being swallowed. Alongside juggling binoculars, camera, and phone, one somehow has to manage drinking coffee.
Apart from the fact that you can’t really observe any individual bird at feeding stations, you also don’t learn much about them beyond their appearance. Their behavior here is not natural: they are not in their usual habitat, and species that would probably never meet in the wild are competing here for food. And if you can’t watch a bird for any length of time, you can’t take particularly interesting photos either. All the birds are in the same place and in the same poses. The compromise is to photograph them when they land on a branch or bush. Many of them return to the same perch after visiting the feeding table, so you can be ready in advance.
A short walk takes us to see a green-fronted lancebill by a stream and a white-tipped sicklebill with a curved bill at its nest, a little pouch woven onto a palm leaf by the roadside. The shape of the sicklebill 's bill is an adaptation to the shape of the flower it feeds from. It also picks insects out of spider webs and uses the silk in building its nest.
We climb a tower. An enormously tall tower, rising above all the trees, swaying slightly at the top. From there you can see the contours of the land, water vapor rising between the hills, and swallow-tailed kites gliding on the wind. From the lower levels the view into the forest, among the tree trunks and dense vegetation, is more interesting.
After lunch we drive to a place called Sacha Guatusa. There is a lovely flower garden there, and the hummingbirds feed on real plants instead of plastic feeders. There are fewer of them, but they are all the more picturesque. There are also tanagers, toucans, butterflies, a squirrel stealing bananas, a woodpecker, and white-bearded manakins. The manakins are very hard to see, as they keep hopping back and forth in dense foliage. You can roughly tell where they are from the snapping sounds they make. A hairy caterpillar attacks first the guide, then the camera.
On the way back it starts raining again. Perhaps it has been raining on this side all day. If the rainforest was hot and humid, here it is cold and humid most of the time.
At the Amagusa Reserve a group of people has already gathered on the lodge veranda with binoculars and cameras. There are both obsessive photographers and meticulous list-keepers. Around the feeding table there is constant fluttering and flashing, and new species names are being called out all the time. It’s impossible to get a proper look at anything. There are huge numbers of tanagers, some thrushes and euphonias, two species of woodcreeper, brown hens on a pile of maize, and a group of parrots with their beaks smeared with banana. Night insects have been attracted to a white sheet, and birds pick them off selectively as if from a buffet. Larger insects have to be bashed against a tree before being swallowed. Alongside juggling binoculars, camera, and phone, one somehow has to manage drinking coffee.
Apart from the fact that you can’t really observe any individual bird at feeding stations, you also don’t learn much about them beyond their appearance. Their behavior here is not natural: they are not in their usual habitat, and species that would probably never meet in the wild are competing here for food. And if you can’t watch a bird for any length of time, you can’t take particularly interesting photos either. All the birds are in the same place and in the same poses. The compromise is to photograph them when they land on a branch or bush. Many of them return to the same perch after visiting the feeding table, so you can be ready in advance.
A short walk takes us to see a green-fronted lancebill by a stream and a white-tipped sicklebill with a curved bill at its nest, a little pouch woven onto a palm leaf by the roadside. The shape of the sicklebill 's bill is an adaptation to the shape of the flower it feeds from. It also picks insects out of spider webs and uses the silk in building its nest.
We climb a tower. An enormously tall tower, rising above all the trees, swaying slightly at the top. From there you can see the contours of the land, water vapor rising between the hills, and swallow-tailed kites gliding on the wind. From the lower levels the view into the forest, among the tree trunks and dense vegetation, is more interesting.
After lunch we drive to a place called Sacha Guatusa. There is a lovely flower garden there, and the hummingbirds feed on real plants instead of plastic feeders. There are fewer of them, but they are all the more picturesque. There are also tanagers, toucans, butterflies, a squirrel stealing bananas, a woodpecker, and white-bearded manakins. The manakins are very hard to see, as they keep hopping back and forth in dense foliage. You can roughly tell where they are from the snapping sounds they make. A hairy caterpillar attacks first the guide, then the camera.
On the way back it starts raining again. Perhaps it has been raining on this side all day. If the rainforest was hot and humid, here it is cold and humid most of the time.
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