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The caiman whisperer

We live among a lot of amazing wildlife, and sometimes I feel like Dr. Doolittle.

Every day we see incredible birds. Some days we see dolphins, sloths, and more. But today's encounter was something very special.

While clearing a path in the jungle, I saw a couple of caiman dash into the undergrowth. As I moved past where they disappeared, I heard one making an interesting noise. It was a sound I had heard from the deck on many previous nights, but I could never identify what was making it. Like I had done on those other nights, I made the same sound back to them. But this time, instead of simply answering from the darkness, they answered from only a few feet away.

More than that, one of them actually came out of the brush to see me. Since this is the breeding season, I suspect it was a female, and she was about 4 feet long. She came out and stopped cold about 2 feet away from me. She stared at me, trying to figure out what was going on, while I continued making the call sound. She repeated it back to me a couple of times, and I could hear others in the brush nearby.

After a couple of minutes, I decided it was time to move away and continue clearing my path into the jungle.

This was an amazing day, and it was not the first time I have been able to interact with the local wildlife in such an incredible way.

I am looking forward to more encounters like this in the future.

Comments

26-05-07 7:56am: OMG! From the deck this morning (5/7/26), we heard one calling from in the jungle. So I made my call. It answered back. After a few calls, it came out of the jungle into the creek near the base of our house. OMG OMG OMG! So amazing! ~ Glenn

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