Madre de Dios River

Black Caiman, Madre de Dios River, Peru

Image 15 of 15

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The central theme of our adventure into the Amazon River Basin and the Manu Biosphere Reserve was to experience the rich biodiversity of the area. More specifically, we were there to spot and identify birds. By the end of our adventure we had spotted and identified over 250 species – mostly birds, some of them rather rare. We also spotted monkeys, reptiles, sloths and tapirs.  The only thing I did not see that I was hoping to see was a  jaguar.

With this in mind, the morning of day three, we left the Cock-of-the-rock lodge in our travel van and continued down the road to Atalaya were we were loaded on to a river boat to begin our journey up the Madre de Dios River which would eventually feed into the Manu River and the reserve.

As a photographer, images were easier to get on the river than on the hikes we took each day. But I want to mention it was never easy.  On the river, the boat was always moving and the subjects were either moving, or too far away or both. On our hikes, the subjects were often high up in the jungle canopy, hidden in and amongst foliage, too far away and back lit by the sky. My camera, with a 400 mm telephoto is heavy and impossible to hold steady.  All this required me to jack up the ISO to 1000 or higher to get a faster shutter speed. Even with auto-focus enabled, it was a challenge.  I cannot tell you how many killer shots I missed. And there were times when there were two and three different subjecst to capture all at the same time.  But, as you will see from the images on this posting and future postings, I came home with enough keepers to make me smile.

This entry was posted in Madre de Dios River.

2 Comments

  1. Gayle May 11, 2017 at 3:09 pm #

    Well THIS was a killer shot of that heron. Wow, looks like he posed for you!

  2. Bess May 11, 2017 at 11:56 pm #

    Love this GBH photo — and I can appreciate the difficulty of photographing birds from a moving boat, especially with a 400mm lens. So kudos on an interesting photo of a GBH in flight. Good story, too. Looking forward to more photos….

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