Yanallpa and Iricahua Caños
The sun was up and the day already warm by the time we had breakfast and boarded the skiffs at 0800 this morning to explore Yanallpa Caño (Black-earth Creek). Three skiffs headed out, each with a naturalist, and we all saw some of the same species and some that the others did not find. That is the way it goes in the rain forest, since we are searching, all spread out on the stream, finding different species and there is never time to radio between boats and all converge to see the same thing.
One of the highlights that we all were able to enjoy this morning was a hollow tree that was home to a family of night owl monkeys. Each boat in turn quietly motored up under the tree and the motorists turned off their outboards. The guides then had us look up and pointed out where the tree was broken off and the monkeys were sleeping. None of us on our own would have ever found them, but the guides had found the tree earlier and the monkeys are now often there. However, as night monkeys may have more than one “jungle apartment” one cannot be sure that they will always be home; we were delighted to see them today, and we made an effort not to scare them.
Such cute, round faces and big brown eyes! They were snuggled and piled together—Mom and Dad on the bottom and two smaller, younger ones on top. They were obviously tired and not concerned about us, since they slept most of the time while we were whispering and pointing below them.
Other highlights seen in the different boats were sloths (of course), monk sakis very close, and in particular one who posed and clapped his hands and entertained us with human-like antics, more squirrel monkeys, and a troop of howlers that we saw from the third boat. We saw clearly several deep reddish brown big monkeys leaping and climbing among the trees and one female carried her big baby on her back.
Although our bird list is beginning to get satisfyingly long, we still were able to add several species to it this morning. Most notably: paradise tanager, bluish fronted jacamar, and two species of kites—the snail kite and the hooked beaked kite. Blue and yellow macaws soared above us and in the distance a white throated toucan whistled from high in the treetops, but never came into view. Reptiles were again also found this morning: a big red-faced cayman lizard and more green iguanas sunning in the trees.
Back on the Delfin II our late morning program included towel origami with our cabin boys, Jose and Pedrito (bartender Christian translated), and I gave a short presentation about my research experiences. Before lunch we met and applauded our crew of 20+. Chef Raoul got the loudest applause—he and his fellow cooks have been serving us delicious gourmet meals and we let them know that we appreciate this!
It poured while we had siesta and in the cool late afternoon we went “skiffing” again, up the flooded Iricahua Caño. White-throated toucans were calling from the high trees (some of us saw them!) blue and yellow macaws flew overhead, and we spotted another couple of the ubiquitous brown-throated three-toed sloths.
As soon as we boarded the Delfin II Captain Remigio had the crew untied us and we began a two-and-a-half-hour navigation about 32 miles down the Ucayali. We tied up early in the night and had a very peaceful sleep.
