BRAZIL: the Atlantic Forest Introtour, Jan 2017
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: The Atlantic Forest Introtour, Jan 2017 A Tropical Birding SET DEPARTURE tour BRAZIL: THE ATLANTIC FOREST INTROTOUR 10-17 September 2017 TOUR LEADER: ANDRES VASQUEZ Photos by Andres Vasquez One of the endemic Brazilian tanagers, the gorgeous Rufous-headed Tanager www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.1 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: The Atlantic Forest Introtour, Jan 2017 INTRODUCTION: This short tour is a great hit due to many reasons. Bird-wise it produces lots of Brazilian endemics that often come in the shape of the most beautifully colored tanagers or the nicest patterned antbirds not to mention some extravagant hummingbirds and elegant cotingas. Scenery-wise, we travel in some beautiful landscapes from the lowland rainforest to the bamboo-dominated highland forest, and from the coastline to the drier interior. This trip is designed to give the opportunity to travelers that cannot spend a long time away from home so they can see a large number of Atlantic Forest specialties in a relatively small area. Some of the highlights, voted by the participants, included Bare-throated Bellbird singing right above our heads with its ear-splitting “boinks”, a patient Frilled Coquette that perched and gave scope views to the whole group, the dullish but very special Three-toed Jacamar, a close encounter with Red-legged Seriemas in an open field, the cute White-eared Puffbird, good views of a gorgeous male Green-crowned Plovercrest, the hulking Giant Antshrike (which was the chosen representative of the amazing family), and among all the stunning tanagers, the Brassy-breasted got picked as the favorite. Even I got a couple lifers that had avoided me the past five years of birding these areas: the scarce Chestnut-headed Tanager along the trails of Itororó Lodge (which apparently is “the place” for this bird in the region) and the probably spreading Campo Troupial near Sumidouro. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.2 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: The Atlantic Forest Introtour, Jan 2017 September 10th: Rio to Regua: We started our tour at Rio’s airport hotel where we were met by the van driver from Reserva Ecologica Guapiassu, aka REGUA. Everyone had chosen to arrive the day before, so there was no reason to pick up anyone at the airport. Despite this, we did not start this day very early, since part of the morning was spent driving towards the lodge, doing some occasional birding on the way. We even had some time to check the gardens behind and in front of the airport hotel where some of the participants got a couple “onlys” for the tour: Harris’s Hawk and Orange-headed Tanager. On the way to the lodge we took a little detour and birded along some narrower dirt roads where we found our first Campo Flickers, a couple Hooded Tanagers, a trip favorite White- eared Puffbird, Yellow-bellied Elaenias, White-rumped Swallows, Yellowish Pipit, Yellow-headed Caracara, and a few more. The most rewarding was a lone Streamer-tailed Tyrant (photo right) that came in and sat on a wire right above our heads. We arrived into our lodge just before noon and were “forced” to stay in the gardens enjoying the feeders since our rooms were not ready given that a large group just left that morning. It was ok for us since we managed to see our first Swallow-tailed Hummingbirds and Black Jacobins at the feeders plus the first Sayaca and Burnished-buff Tanagers, Red-rumped Caciques www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.3 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: The Atlantic Forest Introtour, Jan 2017 and Purple-throated Euphonias that came down to the fruit feeders. After lunch, a small flock with Flame-crested and Yellow-backed Tanagers, Chestnut-vented Conebill and White-barred Piculet came in close to the gardens and kept us entertained for a while as we waited for the rooms, then when they were ready we checked in, unpacked, and got ready for the afternoon excursion. When the hottest time of the day passed, we started our walk towards the famous wetlands of the reserve that holds lots of cool birds. We soon found a quite skittish Blond-crested Woodpecker, a more cooperative Yellow-eared Woodpecker, the cute White-headed Marsh-Tyrant, the dullish Planalto Tyrannulet, a skulking Yellow-chinned Spinetail and a few other passerines before scanning the ponds. On the water we saw Brazilian Teal, Common Gallinule, White-faced and Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, a few herons plus a family of Capybaras that was resting calmly on a distant shore, but as we approached they slowly went into the water. Some other birds of the afternoon came in later near the far end of the wetlands. Glowing with the afternoon light we saw a few males of Chestnut-capped Blackbird singing away from the top of some vegetation over the water, a pair of the Brazilian endemic Wing-banded Horneros that are always around water, and, another endemic species and SE Brazil specialty, the very loud Gray-hooded Attila (photo below) that came in quite close to us and allowed us some photos. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.4 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: The Atlantic Forest Introtour, Jan 2017 September 11th: Regua, the 4x4 trail and the wetlands: We used Regua’s iconic old Toyota pickup truck to go up a steep track, often called the 4x4 trail. We departed right at dawn this day since it takes about 25 minutes to reach the best birding areas in this spot. We were lucky that the only local driver for that day was a good friend of mine and one of the great local bird guides of the reserve, Adelei. Usually he is busy guiding other groups, but this time we were fortunate that he was able to accompany us the rest of the time we were at Regua, since he had up to date info on the territories of the birds. He was even able to join us on the excursion to the coast the following day and was rewarded with a lifer. Ok, getting back on topic, on that first morning on the 4x4 trail we got tons of good stuff. Many things we had to work for quite a bit due to their skulking nature but we got well rewarded. Highlights included Scaled Antbird, Black-capped and White-eyed Foliage-gleaners, White-flanked, Rufous-winged, Star-throated, Streak-capped and Unicolored Antrwrens, Eye-ringed Tody-Tyrant, White-shouldered Fire-eye, Plain and Spot-breasted Antvireos, Rufous-breasted Leaftosser, Plain-winged Woodcreeper, Spot-billed Toucanet, Rufous-capped Motmot, Surucua Trogon, White-barred Piculet (photo above), Violaceous Euphonia, among others. The morning was a great success so we returned to the lodge for a nice lunch and a good rest. In the afternoon we returned to the wetlands, this time birding a couple of different trails. It was a hot afternoon and the birding started slowly, but we managed to add several things to the list including Yellow Tyrannulet, Capped Heron, the Brazilian endemic Sooretama Slaty-Antshrike, a difficult but rewarding Southern Antpipit, the minuscule Reddish Hermit, a lone Lesser Woodcreeper, our first Swallow-tailed Manakin, and the endemic Long-billed Wren. Heading back to the lodge www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.5 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: The Atlantic Forest Introtour, Jan 2017 quite late in the afternoon Adelei spotted a Maned Three-toed Sloth (photo below) that was coming down from a Cecropia tree quite close to us but when it noticed our presence it decided not to go all the way down and instead it moved on to another tree and disappeared into the vegetation; clearly we were delighted looking at it for so long; it’s quite slow moving of course. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.6 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: The Atlantic Forest Introtour, Jan 2017 September 12th: The coast and restinga habitat: An early start was required today since we needed to drive for about 2 hours to the coast near the town of Praia Seca to reach the closest restinga location. Restinga is a habitat of quite diverse thick vegetation specially adapted to sandy and nutrient-poor soils located close to the ocean; these are also prime real estate developing areas and therefore the ecosystem has suffered enormously in the past decades until it finally got some legal protection by Brazil some years back. Relatively few birds depend on this habitat, and the most famous is certainly the beautiful Restinga Antwren, which was our main goal this morning. Once in the correct habitat, this antwren is in fact common but often skulking, we saw it but didn’t manage any photos. Some other birds we found in this spot were Tropical Mockingbird (photo below), which was Adelei’s lifer, the weirdly distributed Bicolored Conebill (photo on next page), Hangnest Tody-Tyrant, Brazilian Tanager, Lemon-chested Greenlet and Burrowing Owl. Scanning the ocean and a nearby pond we found Semipalmated Plover, Black-necked Stilt, White-cheeked Pintail, Kelp Gull, Brown Booby, and South American, Royal and Sandwich (Cayenne) Terns. There is not a lot more to look for here, so we headed back to the lodge for a late lunch. The afternoon was very hot and we did not see much from the lodge grounds. One of the participants decided to take the afternoon off, but got lucky to see a Mantled Hawk from the balcony while we were gone.