Jeff Cable's Blog

Friday, November 6, 2026

Pantanal Photo Tour: Our last couple of days (and a little birthday fun)

If you have been reading the last three blog posts, you know that we visited the South Pantanal before heading to the north to focus on the jaguars, which are plentiful in the area. As you will see, on the next couple of days on the river, we were treated to some great jaguar sightings and more.

The next morning started with a cayman sighting, and then we continued along the river to see if we could find a big cat.

We cruised around the river looking for any activity along the rivers edge, and did not see much. We went pretty far upstream without seeing too much, and then turned around and started our way back towards our lodge. Maybe an hour later, we were rewarded with a GREAT sighting! We saw this one male jaguar moving quickly along the edge of the river.

After moving through the brush, he came in the clear, towards the river. We were all excited to see this beautiful animal out in the open, and in perfect light. I was using my Canon R6 MKIII camera and the RF 100-500mm lens for these images.

Seconds later, a second jaguar emerged from the brush and we had TWO amazing jaguars in front of us! We all fired off a bunch of photos. This was one of my favorites, with both of their tails curled up behind them.

We were the only boat in the area, so we were able to photograph these two males without having to jockey position with anyone else.

Between the 8 of us, we must have fired off thousands of images of these two.

After walking in the plants, they both waded into the water and started swimming for the other side of the river.

We all wanted great images of the jaguars in the river...

...and were very excited to get more than one at a time.

On our afternoon ride, we spotted yet another jaguar. We saw it looking intently into the river and we were hoping that it would locate a cayman swimming by. It did not find any prey, but I really liked this moment, with the intensity in it's eyes.

Moments later, the jaguar jumped into the water, and shook off the water.

Most of the time we are looking down along the river, but this was one of those moments when we looked up and saw some Howler monkeys in the trees.

The area is also known for it's Giant river otters, and the next day we were happy to see this group all fishing together.

This time I was using the Canon R5 MKII camera and the RF 100-300mm lens with an RF 2x extender and shooting mostly at 600mm.

Clearly the river otters were not the only ones fishing in the nearby waters. We saw this Osprey flying over us and got some nice photos of it and it's catch.

It was a long stretch of time without seeing any jaguars, but during that time we came across this large group of Nanday parakeets which were sitting on a sandbar near us. All at once, they took off as a large group and we fired off photos. It was not jaguars, but it was one of my favorite photos of the day.

On our last morning on the river, we had a couple of nice sightings. It happened to be my birthday and the group was nice enough to let me take the front seat. Up until this day, I had always sat in the back of the boat, prioritizing the best seats for my guests. It was a nice gesture on their part. I got down low in the boat and took this shot of this cayman at eye level, catching the morning sunlight head-on.

We had one more jaguar sighting on that morning before we headed back to the lodge to grab some food and prepare for our journey out of the amazon. They even surprised me with a birthday cake and had a little fun for me.

On our first day on the river, we had stopped for a bathroom break and I did my best jaguar imitation. David M. captured this photo and posted it to our WhatsApp group.

Shane F. who is a little obsessed with AI decided to turn this up a notch. Oh boy!

No, neither of these last two photos are real! 😄

Thanks Shane for the fun photos and thank you to the group for making it a special day (and special trip).

For all of you who want to know when I will be going back for another photo tour of the Pantanal, I am in the final plans for a 2028 trip. I should have that trip posted to the tour page very soon!

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Tuesday, October 27, 2026

Pantanal Photo Tour: First full day photographing the Jaguars and more!

The last two blog posts featured images and stories from the south of the Pantanal in Brazil. In this blog post, we transition from the south to the north, to focus on the jaguars which are abundant in the area.

We took an afternoon charter flight to our next lodge, in the north of the Pantanal, and arrived with a couple hours of light remaining in the day. The landing strip was connected to the lodge, so we landed and went straight to our rooms. After getting settled in, we had time to walk around the lodge to see the wildlife on the property,

There were numerous Hyacinth macaw in the low branches around us which gave us another great opportunity to photograph them up close.

There were four of these beautiful birds feasting on this palm fruit, right at eye level.

We also saw hundreds of Capybaras walking around the open areas. As it turns out, we were having to walk through lots of these animals every morning on our way to breakfast.

That same afternoon, we found a large pack of Tufted capuchin monkeys in the trees surrounding our rooms.

Just like the birds in the area, these animals were not frightened by us and allowed us to photograph them up close.

Since it was late in the day, the light was perfect for photos.

The next morning we woke up early and took our first boat ride up the river to try and find some jaguars. I decided to use my Canon R5 MKII with the RF 100-300mm lens and RF 1.4x extender. This combination allowed me to shoot all the way to 420mm at f/4, which worked out really nicely.

Like many people who are on the river looking for jaguars, our first stop was to see if Madrosa was out and about. Madrosa is a female jaguar who hangs out in the same area frequently, and therefore is most easily found. We, and many other boats, were there to capture her beauty.

I reminded my guests to shoot tight...

...and also shoot wide to show the surroundings.

She is a beautiful cat, and we spent numerous hours with her!

We thought we might see her jump into the water to capture a cayman, but unfortunately, that did not happen.

She definitely watched the waters intently, hoping for a cayman to swim by.

There were cayman in the water, but not near enough to Madrosa to be easy prey.

An hour later, we watched as two of Madrosa's cubs made an appearance.

We were all excited to get such nice photos of both cubs, and the light was perfect too. Nice overcast skies for even light on the cats.

After spending time with Madrosa and the cubs, we went out looking for more wildlife along the rivers edge. This time, we found some Giant river otters that were out fishing. It was really fun capturing images of them as they feasted on the plentiful fish.

Lots of different action shots of these otters enjoying their lunch.

Before heading back to our lodge for the evening, we also found some birds to photograph. This Tree swallow was perched on a nearby branch. I put my Canon R5 MKII into pre-continuous shooting mode hoping it would take off, and got this shot as it spread it's wings and flew away.

It was getting dark, but I really liked the dark background with this Great egret and it's reflection. We all got ready for it to take off, and got some really nice photos of this bird in flight.

To say that it was a great first day on the river is an understatement. We were all thrilled with what we saw and could not wait to get back to our rooms to download and see the photos we had captured.

And this was just day one on the river. So much more to come!

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Monday, October 19, 2026

Pantanal Photo Tour: First time photographing the Red and green macaw!

This is the second blog post from my recent trip to the Pantanal of Brazil. We were still in the south Pantanal, but had moved to our second location, with our ultimate goal to photograph the Red and green macaw.

We arrived at our second lodge in the late afternoon, which gave us a couple of hours of daylight to explore the area.

Only minutes into our walk, our guide spotted this Pygmy owl peeking out of it's nest. What a fun and unexpected shot.

After our walk, everyone decided to head back to their rooms. I decided to walk a little more and was treated to a monkey sighting along the entry road to the lodge. Even though I have photographed monkeys MANY times in Costa Rica, I always love capturing different species.

This was the first time I had ever seen (and photographed) a Tufted Capuchin monkey.

The next day, we woke up and headed to the Buraco Das Araras Sinkhole. If you have never heard of this place, it is an amazing place to photograph the Red and green macaw. Many years ago, a cave collapsed leaving a 350 deep sinkhole, and now these amazing birds nest there all year long. There are two platforms (at opposite sides of the sinkhole) where you can view the birds flying from above.

In the morning, we had sunlight on one side of the sinkhole (which made for a really bright background), and another side in shade (which was a perfect background for photos). I encouraged everyone to photograph the macaw against the darker background. For most of these photos, I was using the Canon R5 MKII camera and the RF 100-300mm lens with a 1.4 extender.

There were many times when the birds would fly over and land in the trees only feet from us.

We turned on the pre-continuous setting on our cameras to capture the birds as they took off from those nearby branches.

It was amazing to capture one of these beautiful birds in flight, but even better when they flew in groups!

These were definitely some favorite images from the sinkhole!

It was a good challenge to capture the macaw with different wing positions.

Here you can see 5 of the macaw perched along the walls of the sinkhole...

... and many more in the nearby trees.

During the middle of the day, we left and had a nice lunch. When we returned to the sinkhole in the afternoon, we continued taking many more photos of the Red and green macaw, mainly with shutter speeds around 1/3000 sec, After a while, I challenged everyone to try and motion pan these birds in flight. I changed my camera to shutter priority and set the shutter speed to 1/80th sec. Myself and the others took many photos that were not sharp, but also walked away with some nice images.

To say that everyone had a good time would be wrong. We all had a GREAT time and captured some really nice photos to put in our collections...and this was just the first half of our trip!