As part of the resource for Key Stages 1 and 2, we are putting together some animal based educational presentations to be used by teachers in schools. But we have a problem. We are having trouble finding photos of some of our more elusive reserve residentsand in particular getting images of Maned Wolves, Spectacled Bears and Giant Anteaters.

We are asking for photographers who have any high resolution photos of these species (preferably in the wild) to please donate their usage to WLT to support our fundraising efforts. Of course, absolutely no commercial financial gain will be made from the images and the photographer will always be fully acknowledged.

If you have caught any of these animals on camera and would be happy for WLT to use them in our educational material then please contact Kelly Jacobs by Monday 3rd of May: kjacobs*AT*worldlandtrust.org (Please replace *AT* with @ in your email address field.)

As many of you will have noticed there has been an exciting addition to our webcams. The The Atlantic Rainforest webcam was set up by WLT friend Luciano Breves and streams live from the Southern Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil’s Parana state.

Green-headed Tanager: one of the species you may see live on the webcam. © Luciano Breves.

(Centre and above) The two views from the webcam.

Luciano is native to Brazil and currently lives in Parana state. With a background in communication and advertising, Luciano’s interest in birds inspired him to become a wildlife documentary film maker: "I think it really started when I was three years old. The family’s dog caught a Great Kiskadee and my father rescued the bird. Trying to save the Kiskadee, he gave it some water, making it flow slowly from his hand to the bird’s beak. I’ve never forgotten that and since then I’ve always looked for birds."

Attending Communication College took Luciano away from wildlife briefly, but, in 1997 he made a trip by car into the countryside of Brazil, which reignited his enthusiasm. "I saw the forests being burned and the wildlife I thought I was going to see wasn’t there anymore. So I thought it was the time for someone to show the beauty we were missing and I decided to become a wildlife filmmaker".

The webcam idea came from Luciano’s wife 12 years ago, when Luciano was looking for a way of monitoring the preserved areas of the forest without interference. "In 2008 I moved to Morretes city, State of Parana, to be closer to the subjects of my work: the remains of the Atlantic Rainforest and its wildlife. As usual I set up a feeder to attract birds and in a short time a huge number of them flocked to it. So the idea of live cams returned. If I could show those amazing birds to the world maybe people would fall in love with them and understand the importance of preservation."

And where is the webcam that shows all these wild birds? In Luciano’s front yard! "I live in an urbanized area of Morretes City, a small town surrounded by the Atlantic Rainforest, but I hope ultimately that I can install a webcam on my 27 acre reserve in the middle of the biggest continuous area of preserved Atlantic Rainforest in the region, at the base of a mountain range known as Maciço do Murumbi where I’m starting the Ornithos Visitor’s Centre Project." Luciano’s aim is to provide a centre for visiting birdwatchers and to educate children on the importance of the Atlantic Rainforest.

As you can imagine there are always difficulties with taking on such an ambitious project but for Luciano the main challenge was the cost. "As it is the first live cam in Brazil showing some sort of wildlife it’s not easy to find people or companies who believe in the idea and are willing to help or support the project. With some help I’m sure we would be able to show much more."

The webcam has two views which Luciano moves between to capture all the best bird activity. The first view is of a humming bird feeder to catch the variety of hummingbirds found in the area. The second view is of a rooftop where fruit is laid to attract some of the larger bird species.

Luciano’s webcam captures the biodiversity of the beautiful Atlantic Rainforest habitat, including live images of Bananaquit, Jacu, Green-Headed Tanager, Green Honeycreeper, Great Kiskadee, Blue-tufted Starthroat, Saw-billed Hermit and Swallow-tailed Hummingbird. But Luciano’s favourite is the beautiful Brazilian Tanager: "With its amazing blood-red colour it is impossible to not stop everything you are doing to take a good look. The rare Black-backed Tanager (Tanagara peruviana) is another of my favorites. A pair of Dusky-legged Guans (Penelope obscura) coming to an urbanizad area is always a good surprise. I also remember a rare visit of a Blue-tufted Starthroat (Heliomaster furcifer) never recorded in the area before."

The Atlantic Rainforest is one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet with many endemic species found nowhere else in the world. Unfortunately they are threatened with deforestation, which is occurring at an alarming rate.
Find out how you can help WLT protect the Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil »

View Luciano’s webcam »
Follow more of Luciano’s work on YouTube »

The feeding platform behind the hummingbird feeder us usually visited by a raucous band of coatis, but the toucan appeared around 10am Ecuador time and stayed eating plantain for about 5 minutes before flying off back into the forest.

Toucans are fairly common around the Buenaventura Reserve, but it’s a rare treat to see the brightly marked, fruit eating bird on the webcam as they usually prefer perching higher up in the pawpaw fruit trees found on the fringe of the forest.

The presence of a toucan on the platform most likely means that one of the pawpaw trees closest to the platform has come in to fruit, which hopefully means there will be further opportunities to see this impressive bird on the webcam – so keep checking back!

We have installed new webcam equipment at Buenaventura in Ecuador and as promised we are now broadcasting the Webcam in the Forest live with sound. We invite you all to listen to some of the over 30 different species of bird that live in the reserve.

For the next few days we will be tweaking the setup a little so there may be a few teething problems, but we will try to keep downtime and disruptions to a minimum.

To give you an idea of what’s going on “behind the lens” we can tell you that as of yesterday we have changed from recording with an Axis 211w to using a Varifocal waterproof camera (4mm-9mm) attached to shade/weather housing hooked up to a reinforced, moisture proof desktop computer with a Offsprey video card and a standard directional microphone for the sound.

To transmit the video from the Ecuadorian cloud forest direct to over 1000 computers around the world we use a satellite internet connection to get it out and then a streaming server in the UK supplied by Finetra for distribution.

The red bird feeder that the hummingbirds visit is filled with approximately 1 liter of water mixed with one cup of sugar and amazingly the birds can drink over 2 liters a day!

Due to their incredible fast metabolism (up to 1,260 beats per minute) hummingbirds must consume more than their own weight in food daily in order to survive the night when they cannot eat. The number of individual birds that visit the feeder varies depending on the season and in particular with the amount of plants that can be found flowering further up the mountain.

Due to the high protein content of nectar that makes up the majority of a hummingbirds diet they always prefer the real thing to the low protein sugar water and therefore only come to the feeders to supplement their diet. This means that when there are more flowers in bloom there are fewer birds visiting the feeders, which is a good thing as humming birds are vital pollinators in the tropical forests. To make sure that they are not distracted from this important task by the presence of the feeders, Fundación Jocotoco, who owns and manages Buenaventura Reserve, has commissioned a study into how feeders affect the behavior of tropical birds.

Apart from the main bird feeder we also have the coati feeding platform which is stocked daily with bananas to attract the mammals out of the forest. The coatis that some of you have come to know and love are all from the same “band” that live near the location of the camera and consists of 4 adults and 6 juveniles.

Coati bands are made up of females and juveniles as adult males are extradited from the group and live alone only returning for the mating season. As you can see in the top picture, to help the coatis get to the platform we have put down a bamboo pole for them to walk across.

The cam and feeder are positioned on the side of a small house at the lower elevation part of the Buenaventura Reserve. The building is used by the park guards and the location gives us the dual advantage of access to electricity and internet as well as having the staff on hand for maintenance. The disadvantage — now that we have sound — is that some of you may have heard talking in addition to the jungle soundtrack. To ensure that we get more forest noises and less human interruption we have fitted a long extension chord to the microphone and we will shortly be locating it somewhere further in the forest to get an uninterrupted jungle soundscape to go with the webcam footage.

We will be tweaking the system to get even better results so keep checking back and remember to tell your friends about the project –- it really is a world first! Buenaventura and other reserves supported by the World Land Trust provide a safe haven for some of the most unique and threatened species in the world. If you would like to help protect these areas in perpetuity you can make a donation to World Land Trust to protect threatened wildlife areas forever.

For more information on the World Land Trust and its conservation work, please visit the main World Land Trust website.

To view just click on the following link – World Land Trust Conservation Projects on Google Earth (kmz file, opens in a new window)

You will need to have Google Earth installed on your computer to view this file. Download Google Earth here - it’s free.

Jack

Here at Wildlife Focus we really want people to get involved with the site by contributing wildlife related content such as photos, videos and your wildlife experiences. The idea is that in time the site will become a place, not only where people can learn more about the World Land Trust projects, but also share their love of nature with the wider community.

To get things going we have added a video sharing section that allows you to watch, search and browse videos as well as uploading your own – kind of like a wildlife YouTube! The system is easy to use and it takes only minutes to put your videos on the site for the whole world to see.

As an incentive for people to get uploading we will be giving away a copy of the film "An Inconvenient Truth" on DVD to one of the first ten users who uploads a video. All ten will receive a pack of World Land Trust Christmas cards in time to send to your nearest and dearest. The only thing that we ask is that all the videos are related to Nature or Conservation but apart from that the more varied the content the more interesting the site!

The internet can be a great way to get people interested and excited about our living planet, and ultimately to want to help protect it, but we need your help: Show the world some of the amazing wildlife the world has to offer – get uploading at http://www.wildlifefocus.org/video-gallery.

By uploading a video you certify that you own the rights to the video submitted. You give Wildlife Focus (WF) the right to modify and publish the video on the WF site and in addition, you allow others to embed the content (unmodified) into other websites, provided they give you credit. Full terms and conditions for uploading videos can be found at http://wildlifefocus.org/video-gallery/page.php?page=3.

Right now we have Sean Barry (a volunteer who has recently finished a masters in streaming technology system) working at Buenaventura with our Ecuadorian partners to get the system online again. We have asked Sean to send us an update on his progress of the reserve by way of a blog so watch this space to find out what’s going on.

To find out about the latest updates straight to your email account subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog.

Although the webcam has not been transmitting to the outside world the camera itself has been on and the Buenaventura staff have been using it to take some photos of some of the animals that have come to eat at the bird feeder.

They have recently sent these photos of some of the more unusual visitors who enjoy the luxury of eating the food put out by the guards.

Have a look at the gallery section of the site to see some images from the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary.

You can donate directly to the Orang-utan appeal and learn more about what WLT hope to achieve in the area on the main WLT site.