Red-capped cardinals were fairly common in the Pantanal. I got a lot of good close ups of them hanging around the lodge, but these two were photographed while deep up river late one afternoon on one of our jaguar searching missions.

Rufescent tiger herons were just one of the bird species that I photographed with their heads peaking out of the water hyacinth. These floating plants are a common site along river banks throughout the Pantanal in Brazil.

The light definitely didn’t cooperate with me the day I visited the famous “Einstein” monkeys in northeastern Brazil making shooting conditions difficult (although I do like the final shot because I had time to get into a better position vis a vis the light). None the less, this is a sequence showing the unique behavior that has earned these monkeys the distinction of the most intelligent in the New World.  “Einstein” is just a nickname, of course, and they are actually called tufted capuchin monkeys. They range throughout a large portion of northern and central South America, but only those in this remote area of Brazil display this particular behavior. Their favorite food is the palm nut and they harvest only the ripest nuts. They then tear the outer husk off the nuts and leave them in the sun to dry for about a week. When they return to the dried nuts, they place them on a large flat rock surface, which acts as an anvil. They then use much harder igneous rock boulders as their tool to smash open the nuts. It’s really pretty cool to see these wiry monkeys lifting large boulders over their heads and then smashing them down. Only chimpanzees are known to make more intelligent use of tools.

This crested caracara was trying to enjoy his catfish lunch in peace, but the black vultures kept trying to sneak in and steal a bite. Every so often the caracara would attack the vultures to get them to back off. With my long lens mounted to the camera, I wasn’t able to capture both birds, but as you can see, I did catch just a piece of the vulture’s foot.  The location was the Pantanal in Brazil.

A couple of shots of chestnut-eared aracaris. Aracaris are in the toucan family. These two were photographed in the Pantanal of Brazil.

This is the 4th of the jaguars I saw in Brazil. From what I understand, this is more or less the typical sighting — resting on the river bank, concealed by the foliage. We were actually quite far away in a boat, but I had my longest lens on my camera, plus a teleconverter to get even closer.

The jaguar may be the animal that everyone hopes to see in the Pantanal, but the jabiru stork is without a doubt the face of Brazil’s great wetland. Highly conspicuous throughout the Pantanal, the jabiru stork is the largest flying bird in the Americas. As you can see, the male and female are very similar in appearance.

Burrowing owls can look like little old men while standing guard over their burrows. They are very small, only about 10 inches for a full grown adult. I’ve photographed them before in Florida, California and South Dakota, but this one was in northwestern Brazil.

I spent five days on the Cuiabá River and its tributaries searching for jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal. In that time, I only got lucky on a single morning, but on that morning I saw four different jags within a three hour period. This is the first of the sightings. In the top photo, green ibis are in the foreground as the jaguar emerged from the woods and walked slowly across the beach. She wasn’t there for long, and as my guide tried to maneuver the boat closer, she casually looked up at us before ducking back into the forest.

When you don’t see them in relation to an adult, baby giant river otters look a lot like the regular river otters we get in the United States. They’re similar in size, and haven’t yet developed the characteristic yellow splotches on their chests. The above baby otter was playing with a few of its siblings until the mother came along (below) and ushered them further down the riverbank.