This itinerary will likely be changed for future tours.

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Day 1: Arrival

Your flights arrive today in São Paulo, where we’ll spend the night in a hotel convenient to the international airport.

 

Day 2: São Paulo to Intervales State Park

São Paulo is one of the biggest cities on the planet, and we’ll be happy to leave it behind us as we head west and then south for several hours into the mountains of the Atlantic Rainforest. Intervales State Park protects a massive amount of lush forest and is famous among birders and bird photographers alike for the extraordinary number of endemic species that can be found. On our first afternoon, we’ll start with an easy walk around the HQ area, targeting Orange-breasted Thornbid and Rufous-capped Antshrike, while also seeing loads of the more common species like Green-headed Tanager, Yellow-fronted and Green-barred Woodpeckers, Rufous Hornero, Southern Lapwing, Cliff Flycatcher, White-rumped Swallow, and Picazuro Pigeon. We’ll have three nights at one of the simple guesthouses in the park.

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Days 3-4: Intervales State Park

Intervales has superb bird guides who will accompany us on these days, sharing their stakeouts, including hidden feeding stations for great birds like Spot-winged Wood-Quail, Solitary Tinamou, Variegated Antpitta, Short-tailed Antthrush, and Red-and-white Crake. We’ll spend much of our time deeper inside the park. The birding is fantastic, and the miles of tracks are wide enough to allow a decent amount of light in so that we can photograph many of the birds we see. Some of the more tantalizing possibilities include Black-fronted Piping-Guan, Hooded Berryeater, Spot-billed Toucanet, Bare-throated Bellbird, Giant, Tufted, and White-bearded Antshrikes, Ferruginous, Bertoni’s, Ochre-rumped, and Squamate Antbirds, Purple-crowned Plovercrest, Sharpbill, Ochre-collared Piculet, Helmeted Woodpecker, great numbers of tanagers and flycatchers, and many more. Nightbirding can also be great, with chances to see Long-trained Nightjar, Rusty-barred Owl, Black-capped Screech-Owl, and others.

 

Day 5: Intervales to Trilha dos Tucanos

After another morning at Intervales, we’ll drive about three hours to Trilha dos Tucanos Lodge, a lodge designed from the ground up for birders and bird photographers. Their feeders are terrific and we’ll invest quite a bit of time trying to get great shots of everything that comes to them. Fruit feeders attract Azure-shouldered, Golden-chevroned, Green-headed, Ruby-crowned, Black-goggled, Magpie, and Olive-green Tanagers, Chestnut-bellied and Violaceous Euphonias, Golden-winged and Red-rumped Caciques, Rufous-bellied Thrush, Plain Parakeet, among others, and occasionally something truly special like Saffron Toucanet or Red-breasted Toucan turns up. Hummer feeders will give us our first chances to shoot Scale-throated Hermit, Brazilian Ruby, Violet-capped Woodnymph, Black Jacobin, Versicolored Emerald, White-throated Hummingbird, and others.

 

Day 6: Trilha dos Tucanos

We’ll plan our time here largely based on what we still are looking for after our time at Intervales. We’ll likely spend time on the trails targeting birds which might include Crescent-chested Puffbird, Rufous Gnateater, Speckle-breasted Antpitta, Black-capped Foliage-gleaner, and Pale-browed Treehunter, and also spend more time at the feeders.

 

Day 7: Trilha dos Tucanos to Ubatuba

After a few hours of morning birding, we’ll depart on a long drive back through São Paulo and then down to the Atlantic Coast, where we’ll spend three nights in a hotel near the town of Ubatuba.

 

Days 8-9: Ubatuba Area

The coastal mountain range plunges into the ocean along this part of the Atlantic coastline, producing some dramatic scenery as a backdrop for our birding. We’ll bird several different private forest reserves around Ubatuba, targeting a number of superb birds including Buff-throated Purpletuft, Slaty Bristlefront, Spotted Bamboowren, Spot-backed Antshrike, White-necked Hawk, Scaled Antbird, Black-cheeked Gnateater, Buff-bellied Puffbird, Black-capped Foliage-gleaner, Riverbank Warbler, Robust Woodpecker, and many others. That may sound like a daunting list to photograph, but over the years we have gotten shots of all of them on our various tours, nothing is impossible! One of the highlights of the area, and in fact for the whole tour, will be visiting Jonas’s feeders at Folha Seca. He treats his hummers almost like family, and there is no better place to see and photograph the likes of Festive Coquette, Saw-billed Hermit, Sombre Hummingbird, Black Jacobin, Brazilian Ruby, Versicolored Emerald, White-chinned Sapphire, Black-throated Mango, and others. His fruit feeders vary in activity put sometimes are pumping, and we may pick up a few new species at them such as Red-necked Tanager or Green Honeycreeper.

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Day 10: Ubatuba to Itatiaia

We’ll leave rather early today and drive east along the coast to the town of Parque Mombucaba. The valley north of town is one of the only places in the world to see the beautiful Black-hooded Antwren, which can be shy put sometimes poses for shots. Other birds we will look for here include Orange-eyed Thornbird, Chestnut-backed Antshrike, and Yellow-eared Woodpecker. In the afternoon, we drive back into the mountains to Itatiaia National Park, where we spend the final three nights of the tour in a hotel inside the park.

 

Day 11: Itatiaia National Park

Our first day in Itatiaia will be spent in the lower part of the park. The hotel itself is often a great place to see and photograph some of the best birds around, including Saffron Toucanet, Frilled Coquette, Maroon-bellied Parakeet, and Dusky-legged Guan. If we still need Swallow-tailed Cotinga, it will be a major target for us today as well. We may also spend part of the morning on a more challenging trail that can be good for some gorgeous birds like White-bibbed Antbird.

 

Day 12: Algulhas Negras Road

We’ll take a day trip to the highest mountains in Southeast Brazil, where a number of special birds await. Rufous-tailed Antbird, Large-tailed Antshrike, Black-and-gold Cotinga, Bay-chested Warbling-Finch, Black-capped Piprites, and Diademed Tanager are a few of the star birds we’ll look for along this easy dirt track. We’ll check a reliable lek of Green-crowned Plovercrest, try to see Rufous-tailed Antthrush (hard to photograph) , and bird the edge of an overgrown marsh for Itatiaia Spinetail before returning to our hotel in the afternoon (we may end up spending this night near the Algulhas Negras road if the shuttered hotel we used to use reopens).

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Day 13: Itatiaia to São Paulo and Departure

We’ll have most of the day to bird our way back to Sao Paulo, arriving in time for evening international flights. The tour concludes in the international airport.