2017 was the year of the Tapir.
Come the end of the dry season, we usually expect to see one or two per boat ride but this year was ridiculous. The prolonged heatwave, with daytime temperatures around 40°C, forced the tapirs, deer and even tinamous down to the river to cool off and escape the horseflies in numbers which I've never seen in all my six years of guiding at the lodge. We were regularly counting double figures per boat trip and one lucky lady got to see 20 in one day!
Come the end of the dry season, we usually expect to see one or two per boat ride but this year was ridiculous. The prolonged heatwave, with daytime temperatures around 40°C, forced the tapirs, deer and even tinamous down to the river to cool off and escape the horseflies in numbers which I've never seen in all my six years of guiding at the lodge. We were regularly counting double figures per boat trip and one lucky lady got to see 20 in one day!
Pairs were a regular sighting, especially just upstream from the lodge, but the icing on the cake were a couple of very young babies accompanied by their mothers and which several groups got to see. Despite looking for all the world like a brown watermelon on legs, isn't it just the cutest thing you've ever seen?
Photo by Fábio Paschoal (Muito obrigado!)
Merry Xmas to all my readers and may 2018 bring you plenty of birds, butterflies and, who knows, maybe even tapirs!
