Nauta Cano
Once more we were out in the skiffs at first light to take advantage of the coolest part of the day. Our destination was a narrow creek called Nauta Cano, a side branch of the Maranon River. This narrow creek enters part of the Pacaya-Samiria National Park that we are exploring this week. At this time of year the water level on the river is rising, and over the next few months may rise as much as 10 metres (30 feet). As a result, huge areas of forest will become flooded. This seasonally flooded forest is known as varzea. The rising water levels are to our advantage, as we are able to penetrate farther into the reserve area than we would have been able to last month.
Our search for wildlife in the morning was well rewarded with sightings of several three-toed sloths and our first monkey sightings: both the relatively numerous squirrel monkeys and the rarer monk saki were sighted. And birds featured strongly in the wildlife cast as well, with impressive diversity of both hawks and kingfishers. The variety of hawks was further enhanced by the presence of several other species of raptors, including the beautifully elegant swallow-tailed kite.
As we experienced yesterday, the heat of the day was broken by an afternoon thunderstorm as we set out to walk in the terra firme forest — land which does not flood in the high water season. While the rain may have dampened the prospect of seeing wildlife, the cooler conditions were most welcome. Returning to Delfin II the day was not yet done. Aside from another excellent dinner, we boarded skiffs for the fourth outing of the day, an after dinner night walk to hear and search for some of the nocturnal inhabitants of the rain forest.
