GUYANA - DAY 7 - JANUARY 21ST 2014

 BURRO BURRO RIVER CRUISE – FOREST WALK

WEATHER  -  A CLOUDY START WITH SUNNY SPELLS FOR THE REST OF THE DAY - VERY WARM

 

PART OF THE HAMMOCK CAMP AT THE
BURRO BURRO RIVER

We were up at 5am  all set for the boat trip, the plan was to row upriver for an hour and drift back to the camp. Our main hope was see a Giant River Otter or two and lots of river birds. It in fact was a little disappointing as the bird life wasn’t that prolific and the otter forget to turn up! Nevertheless we had a great experience as we rowed upriver traversing the fallen-tree snags and rocks. We found several kingfishers and many of the delightful White-banded Swallows. We also had good views of White-tailed Trojan, Painted Parakeet, Blue-tailed Emerald, White-flanked Antwren and of course lots more species.

Generally the river area was quiet and our sightings were quite a lot lower than usual, so after another delicious breakfast we set off for a second forest walk hoping to improve on the list. But after about an hour we realised that there weren’t many birds about so we abandoned the walk and returned to camp where we relaxed over a very long lunch. A few sightings were made by a couple of the group during lunch break, these included Epaulet Oriole, Pectoral Sparrow and Ochre-breasted Flycatcher.

A STRANGE FUNGUS THAT ATTRACTED HUNDREDS
OF TINY WASPS AND FLIES



RED-FOOTED TORTOISE

 

 

Finally we spent another 3 hours walking back to the lodge through the forest, it was a little better and a few species turned up. A very drab looking Grayish Mourner showed well, also a Black Nunbird appeared, then we had great views of our 6^th woodpecker, it was a Yellow-throated Woodpecker. A brief view of a Grey-breasted Sabrewing was followed by a Black-eared Fairy, this pretty little hummer was bathing in a stream by hovering and dipping into the water.

LOOKING FOR DIVINE INTERVENTION?

ONE OF THE GREY WINGED TRUMPETERS THAT OUR GUIDE CALLED TO US -
IT WAS AMAZING HOW CLOSE THEY CAME.

The final part of the walk was across open fields and as we approached the lodge area we found two new species for our list, a Scaled Pigeon was found perched at the top of a tree and a Wedge-tailed Grassquit was seen in the grass of course!