Recent Brazil trips produce the goods

Guy Kirwan spent over six months in Brazil in 2005 and early 2006, leading a bunch of trips and recceing some new areas. The regular SE Brazil tour in October proved as successful as ever, producing all those birds that one particularly desires from a trip to the region, Brazilian Merganser, Giant and White-bearded Antshrikes, Cherry-throated Tanager, Elegant Mourner, Swallow-tailed Cotinga, Buff-throated Purpletuft, Black-hooded Antwren, and, of course, Red-billed Curassow, though we had to sweat some on the last-named, until we were finally all rewarded with a female and two males prancing around on the track, wondering what all the fuss was about. As always, the mix of good accommodations, great food and our great driver, Ornifolks stalwart Eduardo, not to mention the birds made certain that this was a not-soon-to-be-forgotten trip. Participants were: Hemme Batjes, Paul Keller, Pat Moynahan, William Price, David Russell and Wim van der Schot. Our next SE Brazil departure is scheduled for 5–24 November 2006.

             Earlier, in September, another Ornifolks trip visited NE Brazil, covering more miles than I care to remember, but finding some great birds in the process. Indeed our only disappointment was the unusual lack of success with some of the Alagoas endemics, but nearly everything else played handsomely for us, from Rufous-sided Pgymy-tyrants in the cerrado at Chapada Diamantina, Great Xenops in the caatinga, Banded and White-winged Cotingas at Porto Seguro, the amazing Araripe Manakin in its incongruous theme-park setting, virtually all of the São Francisco Valley endemics (including the still poorly known Minas Gerais Tyrannulet and Plain-tailed Nighthawk), that perennial favourite, the Lear's Macaw at its regular feeding site, the Boa Nova endemics, Pink-legged Graveteiro (the acrobat bird), to Red-billed Curassow (again!). Participants who put up stoically with a lot of dusty roads, a different hotel nearly every night, and a bunch of rare endemics were: Phillip Duffus, Malcolm Hodgson, Pat Moynahan, Jonathan Price and Rick Schaefer. We don't normally offer as NE Brazil trip, but I am willing to put such trips together on request. We need four to five participants for such trips to run.

             I also spent quite a bit of time in the Amazon this year, reacquainting myself with the area north of Manaus (just how good is the ZF2 tower!), as well as the Anavilhanas archipelago (antbirds galore amongst many other highlights), as well as making an exploratory trip to the Santarém region. The FLONA de Tapajós, just 60 km south of the town, offers another NASA-constructed canopy tower, not quite as high as the ZF2 and the Pompadour Cotingas have become White-tailed this far east, but offering a marvellous viewing platform nonetheless. I also made a trip downriver to the region on the opposite bank of the Amazon where the recently described Sulphur-breasted Parakeet (a close relative of Sun Parakeet) can be found. Expect other surprises from this region to be announced in the years to come. I made some good contacts with local travel agencies, and plan to offer another 'grand' Amazon trip in a couple of years, visiting Borba, Manaus and Santarém.

             Christmas was spent in Carajás, again, where perhaps the highlight was our finding an active Harpy Eagle nest. An Ornifolks newsletter is not the place to print the expletive I uttered upon looking up from working in a tape-responsive Opal-crowned Manakin to see a huge eagle and its nest perched right above the road! Although our small group only had seven days in this region, we managed most of the killer birds, from a range of top tyrant-flycatchers, like Black-chested Tyrant and Black-and-white Tody-tyrant, all the usual cotingas (plus Guianan Red-cotinga for good measure), reams of antbirds including the pipit-like Banded Antbird right on the edge of its range here, loads of great looks at Black-bellied Gnateater, and, of course, lots of parrots including Vulturine. We have one space on our next trip to Carajás, which runs 1-12 September 2008, and we will be offering another trip at about the same time in 2009. To express an interest in any of our forthcoming Brazil trips contact Guy Kirwan (GMKirwan'at' aol.com).

Ornifolks in Eastern Brazil, October–November 2002

 With the help of our leader, Guy Kirwan, and his extensive knowledge of the birdlife of Brazil, six of us set out from Belo Horizonte on a three-week tour of eastern Brazil during October and November 2002. In a spacious and comfortable van driven by Eduardo Santos, a veteran Ornifolks driver, we covered areas in the states of Minas Gerais, Bahia, Sergipe, Espi Santo, Alagoas, Pernambuco and Ceará. We birded in cerrado, caatinga and Atlantic Forest at elevations from sea level to 1700 meters.

 The recently discovered, the exceedingly rare, and everything in between had been targeted by our group. Most of the members had been part of an eastern Brazil trip four years earlier, and the object of this tour was to visit locations that would help ‘clean-up’ Brazilian endemics that had not been seen previously. Participants had sent want lists, and our leader tried to tailor the trip to help meet these requests. Recent taxonomic splits and field discoveries also made it necessary to revisit some spots from the previous itinerary. The trip was designed to be somewhat flexible to accommodate the desires of the participants, and allow for the vagaries of birding in parks where permission to enter is not always easily obtained. Each location held its own specialty birds, and nearly every day we found ourselves in a new area with a different avifauna.

 We had many highly memorable ticks, like the Araripe Manakin, a regal-looking bird only recently discovered, despite its preferred habitat being within a few kilometers of the large urban area of Barbalha. The pair of endangered Three-toed Jacamars managing to hang on in a ravine within a very busy city park in Belo Horizonte had to rank high on the list of unusual memories. A Cipó Canastero scrambling around the rocks high in the Serra do Cipó had us all wishing we had been born with some mountain goat in us. A group of seven Swallow-tailed Cotingas feeding across the forested valley in Caraça paused for scope views for the entire group. Brazilian Rubies and Seven-colored Tanagers glistened in the sun as they fed on flowering trees just feet from us in the forest at Pedra Talhada. A group of 20 of the critically endangered Lear’s Macaw found feeding in their favorite palm trees stayed for an hour while we studied and photographed them from a close distance with the scope. A Striated Softtail visiting to newly constructed nest near Boa Nova was an unexpected surprise. On a track near Porto Seguro, a stunning Banded Cotinga magically appeared in a tree after we had all but given up hopes of finding one. A Black-cheeked Gnateater at Pedra Branca responded obligingly to playback as we crawled into the brush for a closer look. Then there was the Scalloped Antbird at Pedra Talhada that tortured the group for over an hour, staying amazingly hidden in the tangles close by while each of us tried to get some kind of a clear view.

Even though this was meant to be a clean-up, and we largely targeted birds that the group had not seen on previous trips, we still managed to find 525 species, 87 of them endemic to Brazil. This included 10 species of tinamou, 20 species of psittacine, 35 species of hummingbird, 40 species of furnariid, 45 species of antbird, 37 species of tanager, and 79 species of flycatcher.

 The eastern Brazilian forests contain a number of highly distinctive species and a high degree of endemism, making them a must see for Neotropical birders. A great biodiversity is contained in some of the most endangered habitats on the planet. Urbanization, along with clearance for agriculture has left small pockets of forest in highly separated areas. Long days of driving are necessary to reach the appropriate habitats, but the birding rewards are some of the best that can be found anywhere.        

 Sherri Labar

 Postscript:  Guy Kirwan reports that the species of tapaculo heard on the last day was, in fact, a taxon altitudinally separated from Scytalopus speluncae (seen the previous day) and which is apparently undescribed.