A roadtrip to Harpy Eagle's nests

It has been a while but I’m back with more stories to tell.

Two weeks ago I went on another field trip, which was very last minute (have to mention this because I know that my supervisor is secretly reading this blog).  On Wednesday around 10 pm I heard through the grapevine that I had to leave the next morning at 6 to go to Alta Floresta. Because of the lack of public transportation, it so happened that someone was driving two tourists to the airport, and I was able to ride with them to Alta Floresta. During our drive, they told me that they had seen a juvenile Harpy Eagle from a tower near the nest in Nova Bandeirante. The young eagle was flying from tree to tree and after a few hours, they even saw the mother eagle with a prey! Since I was going to visit the same nest during this trip, they left me with great expectations. The way to Alta Floresta is amazing, first you have to take a ferry for about half an hour over the Juruena river, this river is about 4km wide. Then there is another 3,5 hours of driving over a dirt road with crumbling bridges.

After weeks living at Fazenda São Nicolau, seeing nothing but nature I finally reached a city. I thought that cities always have some kind of event but Alta Floresta was kind of a disillusion. Fairly quickly after arriving I heard that only two bars were open and because it was a Thursday night it would probably be quiet.

First, we went for pizza and beer. For the Italians: Since I had to eat rice and beans for 5 weeks, but compared to Italian pizza it was clearly lacking big time ;). Here they even put ice cream and candy on a pizza (sorry).

Then to get to the bar we had to walk for about half an hour, on the way we passed by a plane, which was located on a local plaza in front of a cultural center. Because I still have the pilot gene my curiosity took over and I needed to check it out. The plane had been used in WWII by the red cross and was then somehow abandoned in Alta Floresta. After it had been renovated it became a part of the city’s historical heritage. The bar was pretty close to the location of the plane, and even though it wasn’t late yet, the bar was already closed (or it had not even been open).

Friday:

This was the first fieldwork day. We left to go to a nest about 2.5 hr away. To get there we had to cross a river, this river (which was about 300m wide) is much smaller than the Juruena river. After we had almost reached the river we realized that it would be impossible to see the nest in daylight. It gets dark here at a quarter to six. Going to the nest in the dark was useless and therefore we decided to continue driving to the hotel.

Saturday:

We had planned to leave at 8:30 am, but after 5 weeks here I knew that meant we would probably not leave until 9:30 am. After a good breakfast at the hotel, we would have about 2-hour drive. However, before we could go we had to ask permission to the owner of the land to visit the nest. People here have large pieces of land but they are not allowed to use it all for farming and logging. At least 80% of their property must remain primary forest. Once we had arrived at the edge of the forest where we had to enter to get to the nest, we would only have to go about 500m into the bush to reach the nest. This seems very short, but because the forest is very dense, it took a long time. Every meter we had to cover, we had to chop clear with a machete first. Okay, I say 'we' but let’s give these credits to my supervisor and the driver, who were the ones chopping. Halfway in we hit a wasp's nest as big as a head. Fortunately, it was spotted before a machete went through it. The wasps were already restless, and we had to run a bit back and to take a detour. Once we finally arrived at the nest, it turned out to be inactive and we could return rather quick. While we had a short break by the nesting tree our peace was disturbed when we heard a heavy downpour coming up on us. Completely soaked and without having been able to spot a Harpy Eagle we walked back, hoping that at least the wasps would stay inside because of the rain. Suddenly we heard the driver scream and shout while frantically running away. I had to laugh about this until then my supervisor translated it... "I'm in pain, there are so many wasps!". Inside however, I was still laughing

Sunday:

Today’s plan was to check out a nest rumor. But because nobody knew the location of this nest we decided not to go. Instead, we went to the nest that we planned to visit on Friday. This time we arrived at the river on time and there were enough boats and plenty of fuel. But there was no one who could rent us a boat and take us to the nest. Since there were three parked cars we decided to wait for someone to come back. The riverside was a beautiful place. No other sounds than animals and the river could be heard. Macaws were constantly talking to each other and animals could be heard scurrying thru the forest. And then there was me totally dying because of the heat. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this tropical weather. Unfortunately, nobody showed up and after 2 hours we went back to the hotel, slightly disappointed.

Monday:

The last day of this trip was the day that we were going to visit the nest that the tourists had told me about. Because it is a tourist spot, we could reach this nest by car and a very short and nice walking trail of just a few minutes. We climbed the tower first. It is 23 meters high and is a kind of construction site. While we were standing in the top of the tower we could feel it sway with every movement, walking and climbing but even laughing. With my fear of heights that wasn’t one of my finer moments. We also weren’t able to spot a Harpy Eagle, so pretty soon we could go back down. Since we had to install cameras at this location, the tree needed to be climbed. While the cameras were being placed I was able to make a few videos and photos with the drone. When all the cameras were set up, we climbed the tower again, hoping we would see a Harpy Eagle. But unfortunately, I still haven’t seen one :(