by Liam Howley “No one suspects that the days are gods”. So wrote the transcendentalist writer Emerson. Such a statement needs no context other than the day within which we all live. In truth I cannot remember what text that statement appears in, for it is some time since I have read any of his works, and I have none of them at hand here in the forest, yet I am not preoccupied with that fact.
Alan Lee, February 2007.
A few months ago I was explaining some of the finer details of why parrots and macaws visit the clay licks along the Tambopata with great regularity to a well travelled German tourist who perhaps felt an affinity for a form of wildlife with as strict a habit of time keeping as himself. After I had outlined the importance of the project in the light of the approaching developments crunching their way towards us with the development of the Interoceanic highway, he said:
Alan Lee
Alan Lee
Alan Lee
Of the big cats in rainforests of Peru – the jaguar and the puma, the Puma is the harder one to see usually as it is displaced from areas where jaguar are found as there is a degree of competition between the two species. The jaguar, the heavier and stronger cat, can easily chase a puma from its territory. During my many hundreds of kilometres of transects and walks through the forest, I have encountered 4 jaguar, but only 2 puma.
By Susan Walker
One of the guides asked me the other day what a group of frogs is called, as in Spanish it translates to a congress. To be honest, I didn’t even know a group of parrots had their own collective name. Here are a few others:
Introduction. The results presented here are from field work conducted by the Tambopata Macaw Project at the Amazonian jungle lodge Refugio Amazonas, owned and operated by Rainforest Expeditions SAC (RFE). The research was carried out on properties owned by RFE, the buffer zone and the Tambopata National Reserve with permission from RFE and the Peruvian Institute for Natural Resources (INRENA) under the permit No 025 S/C-2005-INRENA-IANP issued to Dr Donald Brightsmith (RFE Research Director) and permit No 11 S/C-2006-INRENA-IANP issued to researcher Alan Tristram Kenneth Lee.
Bats at clay licks.
Alan Lee
Amazingly, having never read about bats at clay licks, within the last 2 months there have been two publications on the topic from South America - one from Ecuador and one from Peru. The latter is by Adriana Bravo, who used to work at TRC as a guide and on the macaw project. She is currently doing her doctorate at Louisiana State University. Interestingly, the findings are very similar, but conclusions a bit different as we shall see.
I was happy to read the most recent publication explaining variation in Brazil nut fruit production, which does not blame macaws and parrots for predation. Although a previous publication states that up to 10% of a crop can be lost due to predation by macaws on young fruit, the latest modelling states that production is more influenced by lianas and Phosphorus. Results suggest that fruit productivity at the individual tree level could be increased, possibly through experimental liana cutting and/or P amendments.
