Anne and I hosted our grandson last night, and he wanted to visit Estabrook with me this morning, so that’s what we did. He’s just turned six, so the three-mile hike to the north end and back was a bit of a stretch for him, but the little trooper made it the whole way under his own power.

When we got to the pollinator garden, he spotted a goldfinch digging seeds out of some flowers, while I spotted a house wren on the downed log behind the garden, and I did a better job with the house wren picture, so here it is. I was happy to see a wren because I hadn’t heard them since I got back from Brazil.

When we got to the pond, we counted nine wood ducks, but the big find was our first yellow-rumped warbler of the fall migration. “Welcome back and safe travels!”

We pressed on all the way to the north end, and our reward was watching this great egret catch a tiny fish.

On the way back south, he spotted a northern cardinal beside the Oak Leaf Trail, and this time I was able to get a good picture of the bird he found, and here it is. When I showed him the picture, he was surprised to see that it had a red beak. Cool.

Okay, back to the Amazon. After the first two days in Manaus and its surroundings, we headed farther afield, by car, boat, car, car ferry, and finally boat again, to the wonderful Dolphin Lodge on the Parana do Mamori, which eventually flows into the Amazon River. We were greeted on the dock by this stunning and quite friendly male orange-fronted yellow finch (Sicalis columbiana).

Once we got ashore, there were plenty of lizards skulking around in the dead leaves on the ground, and here’s an adult and juvenile giant ameiva, also known as the green ameiva, South American ground lizard, or Amazon racerunner (Ameiva ameiva) checking each other out.

That evening, we went on a short boat tour of the surrounding waters and spotted this spectacular black-collared hawk (Busarellus nigricollis).

There were also a few fast-moving squirrel monkeys, and this was the slowest one.

I could barely believe I was even seeing this next bird, a hoatzin or hoactzin (Opisthocomus hoazin). It was huge, at over two feet from beak to tail, and “is notable for having chicks that have claws on two of their wing digits.” I kid you not!

The parade of large and fabulous birds continued with this snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis).

Besides the river and forest, there was a lot of flooded forest where the trees just grew up through the standing water. At the edge between the flooded forest and open water, big mats of floating grass and other plants grew, and these mats were often inhabited by small families of these long-legged cuties: juvenile wattled jacanas (Jacana jacana). There were four in this particular group…

and one adult, that I could see.

There’re plenty more pictures from day 3, but I’d better stop here and save the rest for later.

It was a very nice morning to return to Estabrook Park. The air was cool and still, and the sky was mostly clear. I counted nine wood ducks and one great blue heron on the pond, but the fun really started on the river at the north end. There I found the first eagle I believe I’ve ever seen at ground level. There was also an osprey, but I only saw it fly by and didn’t get a picture.

There were a few herons around, both blue and green, plus this one great egret who nearly stepped over a resting wood duck as it hunted for breakfast.

On shore, there were several little birds in the trees, including an American redstart or two, and this darling female or immature bay-breasted warbler already on its fall migration to the Caribbean or South America. “Bon voyage, little one! See you next spring!”

I hadn’t heard an indigo bunding all morning, for a change, until I spotted this one who appears to be shouting, “now?!? You need a @#$%& a picture now?”

Finally, in one of the little pine trees at the north end of the soccer fields, I managed to get my very first red-breasted nuthatch picture. Aren’t they gorgeous? I’ve been on the lookout for them for years, and I only just glimpsed one for the first time this spring, but today was picture day! Ask the bunting.

Oh, and about our recent trip, if you guessed “Brazilian Amazon,” you were right! Well done! Anne planned us an amazing trip, and we flew into and out of Manaus, a city of about 2 million people and a deepwater port about 900 miles up the Amazon River from the Atlantic Ocean. A major tourist attraction there is the so-called “Meeting of the Waters“, where “the dark (blackwater) Rio Negro and the pale sandy-colored (whitewater) Amazon River” meet. The Amazon is “referred to as the Solimões River in Brazil upriver of this confluence.”

Anyway, from there we took excursions to a couple of lodges on some tributaries, and I took about 2500 pictures. We saw about 70 bird species new to us, plus butterflies, reptiles, and mammals still uncounted, so it’s gonna take me a while to get them all sorted out. For starters, here are some pictures I took right in Manaus or on a half-day trip just across the river and back.

You may or may not already know this, but the Amazon River is home to its very own Amazon river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis), with echo location and everything, and here are two of them surfacing for a breath.

They are also a bit of a tourist attraction, and the boat we were on stopped at a floating dock just off the far shore where you could jump in, if you were brave enough, to watch a lady handfeed them fish right in front of your face. Anne and I chose to watch from the safety of the dock, but plenty of other tourists did join in the fun, and here are two of them. Yikes! That’s a lot of teeth, eh?

Before returning to Manaus, the boat also stopped at a floating cafeteria, which put on an amazing buffet, and then we went for a short walk in the nearby forest, where a troop of capuchin monkeys had grown accustomed to some tourists or guides handing out fruit.

While there are no alligators or crocodiles in the Amazon River, or so I read, there are plenty of caimans, and here is the biggest one we saw, with a jaw about 18 inches long. I can’t see the teeth, but I know they’re in there.

We didn’t see a lot of birds until we stayed overnight in the lodges, but here’s a flycatcher perched just above the caiman, either streaked, piratic, variegated, or sulphur-bellied, and I’m leaning towards the last one for now.

There were more vultures there than I’ve ever seen anywhere. I counted more than a couple dozen kettling together in the late afternoon sky over the city on multiple occasions. They were mostly black, like the ones I’ve shown you from Connecticut, or turkey, like the ones I’ve shown you in Estabrook Park, and here’s a black one on the ground giving its wings a good sunbath.

Finally, they have the common ground dove (Columbina passerina), the smallest dove I’ve ever seen, at about half the size of the mourning doves we see in Estabrook, and here are two of them getting romantic in the pink early-morning light.

That’s it for now, and I’ll have more for you next time.

We’re supposed to be back by now, but maybe I’ll be exhausted and not have the energy to visit Estabrook already. So, just in case, here’s a kingfisher with a crayfish.

Here are the four wood duck ducklings, from the second brood on the pond, who are still recognizable as ducklings today.

Here’s a picture of a great egret who had just caught itself a nice little fish out of the river.

Man, this trip is taking longer than I thought. I bet we’re having an amazing time, right?

Anyway, here’s that picture of a mink who had just caught a crayfish off the shore of the northern island back in July.

Here’s a grackle back in July who found itself a crayfish claw.

Here’s a male wood duck on the pond and in juvenile or eclipse plumage who had just caugh a tadpole back in July.

Here’s a female goldfinch filling up on musk thistle seeds beside the soccer fields back in July.

Here’s that beaver contentedly munching on breakfast from back at the end of July.