Shelter from the Storm

Late in the day, just as the heat was starting to abate, the sky to the West began boiling up a thunderstorm stew. We were unprepared for how fast these tropical storms come upon you. In Ohio, if I saw this sky, I'd know I had an hour or two to get the tractor in, the windows shut, the lawn furniture covered. In the Amazon, in a matter of 10 minutes, you will find yourself in a gale.

Waiting out the afternoon storm.

The staff of El Delfin rolled down transparent tarps to keep the rain off the top deck where we were sitting. And the captain nosed the boat into shore. The bow was tied off on a large tree trunk. Was the weather going to be that bad?

Mopping up the rain that blew under the tarps. In the Tropics everything gets a little wet.

All the rest of us could do was run through the bird list, check the field guide, and doze off to the thrum of the engine and the patter of the rain.

Roadside hawk.

When the rain poured itself out and the tarps were rolled up, we spied the creatures who had no shelter from the weather. A wet roadside hawk was perched just near the boat.

We wondered how our fellow humans had fared in their dugouts and small shelters. I love the primitive vista of this image.


Soon the weather broke and we saw a dark form in a treetop far above the bank where El Delfin had sheltered on the shore.

What was it? We did not know at first...