Most days on the Brazil trip started early. It wasn’t uncommon for breakfast to be served around 5 or 5:30 a.m. and for the day’s excursion to start around 6. That was pretty much our schedule on Wednesday morning, July 11, after two nights at our lodge near the northern end of the Transpantaneira Highway: bags outside our rooms at 5:15 am, breakfast at 5:30, and on the bus by 6:00. We’d be driving south that day to the end of the Transpantaneira Highway, to a place called Porto Jofre—but we also would be photographing along the way, and Glenn had a place in mind he wanted us to get to by first light.

As we drove, we saw dozens of termite mounds studding the fields, which surprised me—I thought that was only an Africa thing—and we were told there was a chance we’d see giant anteaters. (From Wikipedia, I learned that giant anteaters are classified in the same taxonomic order as sloths. Who knew?) But we had no luck in seeing any.

Probably less than half an hour after leaving the lodge, the bus stopped along the side of the “highway” (again, just a dirt road), near one of its many wooden bridges, at an area that seemed particularly loaded with birds and other wildlife. The idea was to spend a couple of hours just wandering up and down the road, photographing whatever wildlife seemed to present itself, until the daylight sun got too harsh for photography. Glenn said, “Let’s just enjoy this place,” and with that, Read more