Amazon Days, Amazon Nights
Jaguar sniffs my mic...  The camp biologists told usabout sighting jaguar scat and finding paw prints along the numerous paths transecting the research outpost we were visiting.  But none had ever seen it.  Late one moonless night, after Ruth Happel, my colleague, and I had been recording for a couple of hours, we decided to separate and try different sites.  While we were talking about strategy, Ruth abruptly quit speaking mid-sentence and sniffed the air.  Grabbing my arm she whispered, "Smells like a jaguar to me."  After a moment, I caught the unmistakable musky scent and began to wonder about our safety.We were several miles from camp and otherwise alone in the forest.  "I think we're being followed," she said, "but we're probably ok." After waiting several minutes to see what would develop, we heard nothing and decided to continue working into the night, since we had so little time left.  Ruth went off in one direction.  I in another.  At some point about!  a quarter mile down the trail, I set up my equipment with the mics 30 feet from where I was sitting.  No sooner did I switch on my recorder than I heard something breathing in my headphones.  I couldn't believe it had come that close.  And then it growled; low at first.  Then, with an intensity so fierce I was momentarily unable to catch my breath, it growled again.  It lingered for what seemed like an eternity but it probably stood there only a moment or two.  Then suddenly the animal disappeared into the forest leaving the biophony of frogs and insects pulsing in the night.