Wildlife Sightings at Picaflor Research Centre — A Travel Tale — Description

We’ve lately had quite a lot of wildlife sightings here at Picaflor Research Centre (smiley face).

Sunrise over the Tambopata River before a dawn hike, hoping for wildlife sightings at Picaflor Research Centre.

While we were in the kitchen baking the other day, we noticed tree branches moving outside and soon saw monkeys playing nearby! We watched them for about 20 minutes, until we couldn’t see them anymore, then returned to our work.

The next morning we awoke at four-thirty so that we could be in the forest at dawn, when the animals become active. It was soooo worth it!

We saw several cool birds and we saw monkeys on three separate occasions. One time, the monkey, which I think was of the woolly variety, was close to us and was pushing tree branches in our direction, warning us off.

We also saw a neon-green spotted-thighed poison frog and I was lucky enough to spot a collared peccary jump across the path.

I’d recently been bewailing the fact that I hadn’t seen any lizards yet since my arrival.

I’ve been rewarded numerous times recently with sightings of Amazonian whiptails. They only come out when there’s sunshine, which is why I hadn’t seen any before. It had been too rainy since my arrival. But sure enough, I saw my first one the very first afternoon that the sun came out.

In the next few weeks, I’m hoping to see a snake of some sort, bats, caimans, a wild cat, an iguana, and a sloth. Let’s see what an extended period of time in the selva yields.

I’m sure there will be many more wildlife sightings at Picaflor Research Centre yet!