Hide and seek

We have a small wooden hide, which sits on a bank overlooking a bend in the river near our lodge. The hide really blends in with its surroundings...

It is a perfect place to wait and see who might decide to stop by...


The other day, we were lucky enough to be visited in the late morning by our family of giant otters. First, they sunbathed for a while on the bank opposite our hide...


photo taken by John Broughton

They then proceeded to hunt on the same bend in the river which our hide overlooks. They initially caught some impressive-sized fish, and then much to our amazement, they caught and ate a caiman.
With the unusual drying out of the lakes caused by a historic drought this year, more caimans have migrated to the river, when normally they wouldn't need to. This has put pressure on the numbers of fish in the river which both they and the otters feed on. Therefore, by killing the caiman, the otters were not only feeding themselves, but were also decreasing the competition for their shared prey.