Brazil: Pantanal and Amazon

5 - 18 October 2006

Leader: Nick Athanas

Birders: Chuck & Nancy Bell, John & Nancy Solodar

All photos by Nick Athanas except for the Rufous-sided Pygmy-Tyrant, which was taken by Nancy Bell. All photos were taken on the tour.

While Tropical Birding had run several custom trips to this area in 2005, this was our first set-departure Pantanal and Amazon Brazil tour.

We started in the Pantanal where the birds are plentiful and easy to see. Between the wetlands, scrub, and dry forest, it is normal to rack up huge daily birdlists with very little effort. On two of the days we saw 130+ species! Pousada Piuval was again teeming with fantastic birds as we saw many flocks of Hyacinth Macaws, several families of Greater Rheas (one bird was being followed by over 20 chicks!), the impressive Great Rufous Woodcreeper, the spectacular Scarlet-headed Blackbird, and numerous Chestnut-bellied Guans. Moving farther south along the Pantanal Highway, we spend several days at Santa Tereza on the banks of the Rio Pixaim. The dense gallery forest here holds some real treasures like Helmeted Manakin, Pale-crested Woodpecker, Band-tailed Antbird, the weird Dull-capped Attila, and frenetic Moustached Wrens. The afternoon boat rides on the river were a great way to finish the day, with Bare-faced Curassows along the banks, lots of piping-guans flying over, all the kingfishers, and who will ever forget the sight of a family of Giant Otters ganging up on a huge caiman and chasing it away?

After the Pantanal, we spend a few days in upland cerrado and wetter gallery forest in the Chapada dos Guimares areas. The cooler weather was a nice change, and the birds here were truly fascinating, from the unique White-banded and White-rumped Tanagers to the rare and diminutive Rufous-sided Pygmy-Tyrant, to the great views of a pair of Red-winged Tinamous wandering around a cow pasture.

On this tour, however, we saved the best for last (though I admit I am an Amazon junkie). Cristalino Jungle Lodge, located in the southern part of the Amazon in a fantastically beautiful wilderness area on the banks of the Cristalino River, is truly one of the best lodges on the continent. We had five nights in this paradise and enjoyed every second of it. Even though the area boasts well over 500 species of birds, birding the dense rainforest is a challenge indeed, and it takes a lot of patience to pull out the many skulking species here. The rewards are great though and we had many nice sightings on the trails like Rufous-necked Puffbird and Collared Puffbirds, Glossy Antshrike, lots of antbirds including the pretty Dot-backed, and even a family of Amazonian Pygmy-Owls during the day. The well-built metal canopy tower gives a chance to get above the trees and look down on many birds that are difficult to see from the forest floor. We had nice eye-level view of White-browed Hawk, Curl-crested and Red-necked Aracaris, Black-bellied Cuckoo, and even the outrageous Red-fan Parrot.

The gateway to Cristalino is the city of Alta Floresta, and on the outskirts in a small remnant patch of rainforest there is a nice hotel called the Floresta Amazonica hotel, owned by the same family that owns Cristalino Lodge. Amazingly, a pair of Harpy Eagles had successfully nested in this small forest fragment and raised a chick. Before flying back to Cuiabá at the end of the trip, we stopped in here for lunch and walked out to see the nest. The now nearly full-grown chick was perched in the nest tree and we all enjoyed terrific views of this massive bird. As if that wasn't enough, on the way back to lunch we scared up a sleeping Long-tailed Potoo near the side of the trail! What a way to end a great trip.

Photo Gallery

This year Blue-winged Macaws were plentiful in the cerrado habitat of the Chapada dos Guimaraes.

Curl-crested Aracaris were all around the canopy tower at Cristalino. They must have been nesting nearby, as this one was carrying food.

Chotoy Spinetail is easily one of the prettiest of the group - we saw this one along the Pantanal Highway.

One of the giants of the family, the Great Rufous Woodcreeper never fails to impress. They were really vocal at Piuval and we found one fairly easily in a forest island on our first afternoon.

The young Harpy Eagle at the Floresta Amazonica hotel will likely leave its nest tree soon. It is already starting to show the dark collar charactersitic of adult plumage.

This guy never fails in being the favorite woodcreeper of the trip. We saw this Long-billed Woodcreeper one afternoon in a swampy area on the Manakin trail at Cristalino.

As if it weren't enough to see the Harpy Eagle on our 45 minute walk at the Floresta Amazonica hotel, we somehow managed to scare up a sleeping Long-tailed Potoo on the way back, and it landed in plain view on the edge of a treefall. What luck!

This Reddish Hermit was lekking near where we saw the Long-tailed Potoo.

Nancy Bell managed to get this cracking photo of the rare and local Rufous-sided Pygmy-Tyrant in the cerrado at Chapada dos Guimaraes.

A pair of Southern Screamers feeding near the Pantanal Highway.

Definitely one of the trip highlights, we had fantastic views of this rare White-browed Hawk from the top of the canopy tower at Cristalino.

BIRD LIST
This list includes all the bird species that were recorded by at least one of us. Taxonomy and nomenclature follow: Clements, James F. 2000. Birds of the World: A Checklist. Fifth Edition. Vista, CA: Ibis Publishing Co., including updates.

Totals:
423 seen
57 heard only

Abbreviations:
H=Heard only
(I)=Introduced species
(nt)=Considered near-threatened by BirdLife International
(VU)=Considered vulnerable by BirdLife International
(EN)=Considered endangered by BirdLife International

Site codes:
P=Pantanal, including the road to Poconé
C=Chapada dos Guimaraes
A=Amazon (Cristalino Lodge and Alta Floresta)