Incredible encounter

Generally, the mornings of our Dutch intern Jaimie are rather unspectacular. As he is conducting a comparative study on the attractiveness of wild and domestic hummingbird pollinated plants in the reserve, he spends a lot of time “staring” at flowers and waiting for the occasional hummingbird visit.

But yesterday all this time sitting around quiet in the forest paid off in a fantastic way. When Jaimie was almost done with his observations on a Heliconia plant, two ocelots came walking up towards him on the trail, a mother and her baby. The mother disappeared into the dense undergrowth really quick when she noticed Jaimie. But the unexperienced baby was a bit more curious: it walked around Jaimie and his notebook for a few minutes, before it also ran into the bushes, calling for its mom.

Fortunately, Jaimie had his phone on him and despite his excitement, he managed to take a few shaky pictures of the baby ocelot. If it weren’t for these photos we would probably not have believed him when he shared this incredible experience at lunch. We were all pretty envious (at least I was!!). Though it is awesome to get reminded that anytime you go out into the forest something spectacular can happen.

And here the photos:

Photo credits: Jaimie Kuntzelaers