wild llanos safari

Every year, a couple of visitors get gored by bison in Yellowstone. While garden-variety stupidity explains many of these incidents, there’s also another factor in play. Back home, the division between wilderness and civilization is nearly absolute. Growing up in the Northeast, for example, our encounters with wildlife were largely confined to zoos and aquariums. Even out west, where most of America’s natural bounty lies, national parks are far removed from most cities. Not so in other countries. In Kenya, the closest wildlife park — Nairobi National — was located near the airport. We could go on safari practically in our backyard — and the communities abutting the park sometimes found lions in their literal backyards, hunting their goats. Similarly, when we visited the Maasai Mara — the crown jewel of Kenya’s national park system — we stayed on Maasai-run conservancies abutting the park. The Maasai, Kenya’s warrior tribe, continue to dwell on their ancestral lands right among the big five animals that draw masses of tourists to the African plains. Similarly, on our recent Colombian safari, the vast llanos — extensive prairies that host all manner of wildlife — are also home to llaneros, ranchers tending large horse and cattle herds and coexisting with the surrounding nature. Unlike in Africa, there were no predators large enough to bring down a cow stalking the herds grazing the llanos, so the domesticated animals were left free to roam the same vast expanses of grasslands we explored in our 4×4 vehicle in search of exotic wildlife, such as giant anteaters. Even as the llanos blurred the line between wilderness and civilization, there was no doubt we were on safari far out in the wild. Our driver gently maneuvered the vehicle along a rough track cut through the open plains keeping his eyes peeled for interesting species. We sat on leather benches welded to the truck cab with instructions to tap on the roof if we wanted to stop. This kept the kids engaged: Munchkin helped D maintain his bird checklist while Junebug claimed the job of instructing our driver to stop and go. Capybaras. Burrowing owls. Baby foxes. Jabirus. All manner of shorebirds. The wildlife photography opportunities were numerous. On the African plains, one must be careful and almost always remain in the car. One time, our guide hopped out to try to spook a hawk for a takeoff photo, walked a dozen feet from the vehicle, and then ran back faster and with more desperation than we had ever seen anyone run: he had heard lions growling in the bush nearby. There was no such danger on our safari so D was free to hop out of the car to get better photos of several raptors. Two months after our Colombian safari, D still has several thousand unsorted photos from that trip, so here’s a down payment of some of his early favorite bird pics, with more to come. Pictured from top to bottom: wire-tailed manakin, jabiru, yellow-rumped cacique, black skimmer, Venezuelan troupial, great potoo.