The sightings and sounds of our wildlife species continue to diversify. We are now quite familiar with the three-note call of the undulated tinamou in the morning, or the high-pitched squeak of the saddle-back tamarin, or the plaintive call of the black-collared hawk. Our excellent guides are not only training our eyes on how to spot wildlife in the tropical rainforest, they are training our ears as well.
This afternoon, we added our sense of taste to the training regime with a presentation on the fruits of the rainforest. Most of the items seemed quite foreign to our untrained eye, but they were a delight to the taste buds, especially the passion fruit, in my opinion.
Our outing this afternoon included a bit of a dramatic moment. We spotted a lineated woodpecker thumping on a dead tree with four chestnut-eared aracaris all perched within inches of it. Our first thought was that a woodpecker nest was at risk from the aracaris. As we got a better look, we counted five aracaris as they came out of the nesting cavity. This was like clowns coming out of a Volkswagen. We altered our supposition to thinking that the woodpecker decided to thump on the wrong tree for insects, and the aracaris worked tirelessly to drive it away. Ultimately they did.
The tropical rainforest is giving us a delightful diversity of experiences for all of our senses.
