1st October back in Lima
Most of our time here has been spent doing surveys in boats: dolphins, fish, wading birds, macaws and caiman but we also did jungle transects which involve walking along a 2.5 km path that has been previous established and noting down any terrestrial mammals you see. So this has been a real opportunity to see the jungle close up.
Well, my initial observation was that it is not as noisey, colourful or luxuriantly verdant as you would imagine. As Kevin, another British volunteer said on coming back from the first transect: “It is not that different from walking through dense woodland at home” . But, it clearly is different ... in a British wood you are unlikely to come across anything that would harm you. Here, however, benign as it might seem, it is dangerous. We wear wellies ... not just against the occasional soggy area .. but to protect against ants and snakes that may be lurking. Then you need to take care not to touch the trees as you trog along .... quite a number have some scary looking thorns .. just at arm level. When we stop and wait for an hour at the
end of a transect you need to look carefully where you park your bum, so you don’t get ants in your pants ..... and check you backpack before you pick it up again .... big bugs may be attached.
So, you start off walking looking hard for any movement ..... keen as mustard and tense with expectation ... 40 minutes later your mind begins to wander and then the guide, local chap with a machete, stops and points up in the trees .... about 4 minutes later after a lot of pointing you just about make out a monkey miles up in the canopy. How the hell did he know it was there? He then tells you that there are 15 of them up there .... my god I only saw one! Well, you quite soon realise that he often hears them rather than sees them initially. So, you need to know the difference between primate, bird and squirrel sounds (yes they have squirrels in the jungle). And this is not easy ... there are birds that sound to me like primates and monkeys that sound like chattering squirrels. And howler monkeys ‘howling’ sound more like a large cat roaring. It is a confusing place. So in the end you allow your mind to wander whilst casting your eyes around just to enjoy what you see rather than have any expectation that you will spot anything other than a ‘lower storey’ bird. However, we are not recording the birds ...only terrestrial mammals. So in any one transect of about 2 hours walking you many see a few monkeys, a squirrel and a wood rat – possibly a sloth but they don’t move much so less likely to spot him. The wood r
at (also know as the window rat) sits in a hole about 20ft up a tree trunk unmoving (having a kip?)... like a bored shopkeeper waiting for some trade). They are nocturnal so they are usually spotted every time on transects where their holes are near the path.
So what does the jungle itself look like? The ground is covered with rotted leaves and it is consistently soft underfoot. You are walking on layers and layers of leaves and wood that has been underwater for several months of the year. There are no stones here... the whole area is created from soft alluvial sediment washed down from the Andes. So the only obstacles in your path are tree roots, new saplings growing up, and various types of vines, thick and thin, that wind their way around trees and logs. Some of these vines form intriguing sculptures on their own. Oh and there are quite a lot of holes you can fall into!
Also there are long thin threads hanging down which are terrestrial roots finding their way down to the jungle floor level – I presume usually formed when the forest is flooded.
The trees are not close packed but if a path had not been cut you would spend quite a lot of time negotiating your way past vines etc. So you can see to a depth of about 12-20 metres. When you look up ... you often see bromeliads growing on branches of trees particularly where two branches met.
Some of the trees have these enormous buttresses so they look like tripods ... apparently this is because the soil is so soft and the roots don’t go down very deep and so this supports them. As there is major flooding of the forest floor every year. Well I could go on but here are some pictures.
Well, I can’t say what other parts of the Amazon look like but I have spent two weeks in a part of the Peruvian Amazon called the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve – an area the size of Wales. The name reflects the names of the two rivers that run through it ... both of which a
re tributaries/loops coming from and flowing back into the Rio Maranon . The Maranon joins the Amazon real about 100 km further east. The reserve is an area that experiences enormous changes of water level through the year and so is known as flooded forest.
Clearly the level of flooding relates to the amount of water coming off the Andes. Right now it is experiencing the lowest water levels since records began (about 100 years ago) and last year during the rainy season it experienced the highest recorded levels. As you are probably aware there was a very high level of rain last year ... hence the closing of Machu Picchu earlier this year for a few months as landslides had swept away part of the railtrack into the valley. There are always fluctuations that relate to the occurrence of the El Nino current (supposedly about every 7 years) but these recent high and low levels indicate that there are things are afoot with the climate in general, too.
re tributaries/loops coming from and flowing back into the Rio Maranon . The Maranon joins the Amazon real about 100 km further east. The reserve is an area that experiences enormous changes of water level through the year and so is known as flooded forest.Clearly the level of flooding relates to the amount of water coming off the Andes. Right now it is experiencing the lowest water levels since records began (about 100 years ago) and last year during the rainy season it experienced the highest recorded levels. As you are probably aware there was a very high level of rain last year ... hence the closing of Machu Picchu earlier this year for a few months as landslides had swept away part of the railtrack into the valley. There are always fluctuations that relate to the occurrence of the El Nino current (supposedly about every 7 years) but these recent high and low levels indicate that there are things are afoot with the climate in general, too.
Most of our time here has been spent doing surveys in boats: dolphins, fish, wading birds, macaws and caiman but we also did jungle transects which involve walking along a 2.5 km path that has been previous established and noting down any terrestrial mammals you see. So this has been a real opportunity to see the jungle close up.
Well, my initial observation was that it is not as noisey, colourful or luxuriantly verdant as you would imagine. As Kevin, another British volunteer said on coming back from the first transect: “It is not that different from walking through dense woodland at home” . But, it clearly is different ... in a British wood you are unlikely to come across anything that would harm you. Here, however, benign as it might seem, it is dangerous. We wear wellies ... not just against the occasional soggy area .. but to protect against ants and snakes that may be lurking. Then you need to take care not to touch the trees as you trog along .... quite a number have some scary looking thorns .. just at arm level. When we stop and wait for an hour at the
end of a transect you need to look carefully where you park your bum, so you don’t get ants in your pants ..... and check you backpack before you pick it up again .... big bugs may be attached. So, you start off walking looking hard for any movement ..... keen as mustard and tense with expectation ... 40 minutes later your mind begins to wander and then the guide, local chap with a machete, stops and points up in the trees .... about 4 minutes later after a lot of pointing you just about make out a monkey miles up in the canopy. How the hell did he know it was there? He then tells you that there are 15 of them up there .... my god I only saw one! Well, you quite soon realise that he often hears them rather than sees them initially. So, you need to know the difference between primate, bird and squirrel sounds (yes they have squirrels in the jungle). And this is not easy ... there are birds that sound to me like primates and monkeys that sound like chattering squirrels. And howler monkeys ‘howling’ sound more like a large cat roaring. It is a confusing place. So in the end you allow your mind to wander whilst casting your eyes around just to enjoy what you see rather than have any expectation that you will spot anything other than a ‘lower storey’ bird. However, we are not recording the birds ...only terrestrial mammals. So in any one transect of about 2 hours walking you many see a few monkeys, a squirrel and a wood rat – possibly a sloth but they don’t move much so less likely to spot him. The wood r
at (also know as the window rat) sits in a hole about 20ft up a tree trunk unmoving (having a kip?)... like a bored shopkeeper waiting for some trade). They are nocturnal so they are usually spotted every time on transects where their holes are near the path. So what does the jungle itself look like? The ground is covered with rotted leaves and it is consistently soft underfoot. You are walking on layers and layers of leaves and wood that has been underwater for several months of the year. There are no stones here... the whole area is created from soft alluvial sediment washed down from the Andes. So the only obstacles in your path are tree roots, new saplings growing up, and various types of vines, thick and thin, that wind their way around trees and logs. Some of these vines form intriguing sculptures on their own. Oh and there are quite a lot of holes you can fall into!
Also there are long thin threads hanging down which are terrestrial roots finding their way down to the jungle floor level – I presume usually formed when the forest is flooded.
The trees are mostly tall with large branches only forming quite high up but as you look up you see different levels. For scientific purposes they divide it into three levels: the upper canopy with only the occasional tree standing proud of the others .. these are often where the monkeys are and also some of the large birds like Macaws, the next level down is more dense and often the trees have great swaths of vines covering them .. and then there is the under storey with rather small thin trees with not a lot of leaf on them but this is where you find the wood creepers, woodpeckers, ant birds and hummingbirds ... as there are lots of insects and bugs at this level. The humming birds sounding like very loud wasps or flying beetles... and you whisk around because you think it is going to hit you and you see this small body just hanging in space with apparently no wings ... they are going so fast you can barely seem them.
The trees are not close packed but if a path had not been cut you would spend quite a lot of time negotiating your way past vines etc. So you can see to a depth of about 12-20 metres. When you look up ... you often see bromeliads growing on branches of trees particularly where two branches met.
Some of the trees have these enormous buttresses so they look like tripods ... apparently this is because the soil is so soft and the roots don’t go down very deep and so this supports them. As there is major flooding of the forest floor every year. Well I could go on but here are some pictures.
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