Waiting for the Ichthyologists

Written on 10 August 2011

I’m sitting on a comfortable rock in the middle of a branch of the Caterpiza River. After yesterday’s long hike I thought I’d take a break from plants for a morning and tag along with the ichthyologists instead – but something is keeping them from our rendezvous. The stretch of river where I’m waiting for them is shaded by tall forest to either side and overhung with Heliconia and Piper and Inga and Ficus and Cecropia and Miconia and Carludovica and Pentagonia. The water is so transparent that the fish look as though they’re floating under a pane of glass, and if I had my binoculars it would be easier to study them than to watch birds up in the canopy. The ichthyologists are late, but the water feels nice on my bare feet. Every now and then a coppery crab comes sidling over and caresses my instep with his pincers.

A fossil bivalve overlooks an open stretch of the Caterpiza River near our  camp two.
Photo: A. del Campo

Post by Nigel Pitman, Conservation Botanist