Friday, December 15, 2006
12 December Pink River Dolphins...yes, pink. Grey too, but amazing fresh water pink dolphins.
Only found in the Amazon. They have evolved without a dorsal fin so they can navigate shallow , choked water and especially good sonar for the muddy water of the Amazon. They don't breach like grey dolphons; they are much shyer and don't like the noise of the outboard. If you get in the river to swim with them they just disappear. Once the engine was cut, there were quite a lot. Can't count the number of animals just the number of surfaces -water too muddy. It is said they can enchant people into the Amazon to live with them in their underwater world. Like the legend of the mermaids in the Rhine. Great book - searching for Pink Dolphins by Sy Montgomery - found it in a library in Huaraz and discovered our guide Moises helped the author with research and guiding. Will purchase a copy on my return home.
This area is so rich with life, it is hard to describe - a fish jumped into the boat this morning (a sardine, but the biggest sardine I've ever seen - would fill the tin on his own!) when we were out looking for birds this morning before breakfast. No need to go fishing...We saw hundreds of species of birds, all easy to see and quite undisturbed by our presence. Monkeys, bats, fish, dolphines, butterflies of all colours. Cairo may be a seething mass of humanity but the Amazon is a seething mass of biology.
Out forest walking again this afternoon. Saw 4 Pygmy Marmoisettes - tiny monkeys no bigger than my hand - and lots of butterflies - blue, green, brown, white. Some nearly as big as the monkey! Lots of fungii, bromilliads, and other epiphites. And the Amazon is the world's best breeder of mossies. If we have the great Aussie wave for flies, the Amazon has the great Amazon wave for mossies. Even smothered in Rid they covered every surface, rising in swarms from the rotting fruit and mud puddles. Instead of filling your nose and mouth, they target your eyes and ears. That incecent buzzing in your ears is deafening and very frustrating. They even drown out the cicadas. It is only like this in the forest where they breed. At the Lodge and on the river there are very few. It seems there are over 1800 species of birds in Peru some 450 are endemic - no wonder we are seeing so many birds.
I've had a cold shower now and de-sweated myself. Sitting quietly on my verandah over looking the river as the sun goes down. Much cooler now. The crickets and frogs have started their nightly concert. The birds are making their comforting bed-time calls. I can hear a woodpecker tap, tap, tapping (we saw 2 different breeds on our jungle excursions). The current is carrying the silt and flotsom of last night's storm downstream and adding to the logjams and weed islands already clogging the river.
Today I even saw a new banana plant growing out of a fallen one as it floated downstream. Bank errosion is a major occurance here but it is seen as part of the natural cycle. The bank can be 2m high above the current water level, all rich top soil, and it just slides into the river with rain and provides top soil to the farmers further downstream.
Only found in the Amazon. They have evolved without a dorsal fin so they can navigate shallow , choked water and especially good sonar for the muddy water of the Amazon. They don't breach like grey dolphons; they are much shyer and don't like the noise of the outboard. If you get in the river to swim with them they just disappear. Once the engine was cut, there were quite a lot. Can't count the number of animals just the number of surfaces -water too muddy. It is said they can enchant people into the Amazon to live with them in their underwater world. Like the legend of the mermaids in the Rhine. Great book - searching for Pink Dolphins by Sy Montgomery - found it in a library in Huaraz and discovered our guide Moises helped the author with research and guiding. Will purchase a copy on my return home.
This area is so rich with life, it is hard to describe - a fish jumped into the boat this morning (a sardine, but the biggest sardine I've ever seen - would fill the tin on his own!) when we were out looking for birds this morning before breakfast. No need to go fishing...We saw hundreds of species of birds, all easy to see and quite undisturbed by our presence. Monkeys, bats, fish, dolphines, butterflies of all colours. Cairo may be a seething mass of humanity but the Amazon is a seething mass of biology.
Out forest walking again this afternoon. Saw 4 Pygmy Marmoisettes - tiny monkeys no bigger than my hand - and lots of butterflies - blue, green, brown, white. Some nearly as big as the monkey! Lots of fungii, bromilliads, and other epiphites. And the Amazon is the world's best breeder of mossies. If we have the great Aussie wave for flies, the Amazon has the great Amazon wave for mossies. Even smothered in Rid they covered every surface, rising in swarms from the rotting fruit and mud puddles. Instead of filling your nose and mouth, they target your eyes and ears. That incecent buzzing in your ears is deafening and very frustrating. They even drown out the cicadas. It is only like this in the forest where they breed. At the Lodge and on the river there are very few. It seems there are over 1800 species of birds in Peru some 450 are endemic - no wonder we are seeing so many birds.
I've had a cold shower now and de-sweated myself. Sitting quietly on my verandah over looking the river as the sun goes down. Much cooler now. The crickets and frogs have started their nightly concert. The birds are making their comforting bed-time calls. I can hear a woodpecker tap, tap, tapping (we saw 2 different breeds on our jungle excursions). The current is carrying the silt and flotsom of last night's storm downstream and adding to the logjams and weed islands already clogging the river.
Today I even saw a new banana plant growing out of a fallen one as it floated downstream. Bank errosion is a major occurance here but it is seen as part of the natural cycle. The bank can be 2m high above the current water level, all rich top soil, and it just slides into the river with rain and provides top soil to the farmers further downstream.
# posted by The Essence of Good Taste @ 10:55 AM 
