Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 A Tropical Birding Set Departure BIRDING TOUR (www.shorturl.at/cpq89) Brazil: Atlantic Forest Highlights 13-20 July, 2019 Report and photos by ANDRES VASQUEZ N., the guide for this tour One of the great things about this tour is the extremely pleasant combination of “good-old-fashion” forest birding with incredibly active and diverse feeders. This Festive Coquette (picture above) is one of the birds that we basically manage to enjoy only thanks to the feeders at Folhia Seca near Ubatuba; this incredibly ornate species is otherwise hard to pick up in the canopy of tall tropical forest due to its tiny size and fairly non-contrasting colors. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.1 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 INTRODUCTION: The Atlantic Forest of Southeast Brazil is a very well-known Endemic Bird Area (EBA) of the World thanks not only to its richness, in terms of endemic species but also thanks to the fact that most of those endemic birds are absolutely spectacular. This makes that this region of the globe is in the bucket list of any birdwatcher that wants to fill his/her list with A TON of brightly colorful endemic birds. Now, this area is vast and in order to cover it all we have to drive considerably long distances in over three weeks of birding (which we do in our comprehensive SE Brazil tour, see here: www.shorturl.at/isuCN) BUT FORTUNATELY for the birders that do not have all this long time off we created this shorter trip, The Atlantic Forest Highlights tour, which very well represents “in a nutshell” the greatness of this region since it includes most of the very nicest-looking birds of the whole EBA. The Brazilian endemic Golden-chevroned Tanager is a looker that visits feeders both in highlands and in lowlands. We designed this tour to cover both highlands and lowlands of the Atlantic forest by spending 3 nights in each zone based out of two great hotels. With this we cover all the altitudinal gradation of bird species in the area and this means a great variety of potential birds. This also means the trip is logistically very comfortable without sacrificing great birding since the hotspots are either very close or they are right within. Cutting to the chase, amongst the most memorable birds of the tour we had Black-billed Scythebill, Green-crowned Plovercrest, Red-necked, Green-headed, Gilt-edged, Brassy-breasted, Brazilian, Black-goggled, and Golden-chevroned Tanagers, Mantled and White-necked Hawk (both perched closely), Half-collared Sparrow, Araucaria Tit-Spinetail, www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.2 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 Itatiaia Spinetail, Streamer-tailed Tyrant, Curl-crested Jay, Robust, Blond-crested, and White Woodpeckers, Saw-billed Hermit (among the 4 species of hermits we saw), Shear-tailed Gray-Tyrant, Frilled and Festive Coquettes, White-eared Puffbird, Tawny-browed Owl, 19 species of antbirds out of which Scaled Antbird and Black-hooded Antwren were the favorites of the group. A pair of Streamer-tailed Tyrants did great displays in front of us on the first day. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.3 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 NARRATIVE: This tour starts and ends in the huge metropolis of Sao Paulo with a night in the outskirts of this monster city on arrival day and directly at the airport on the last day of the tour since most international flights leave late in the evening so it is the best expenditure of time you can have. As mentioned above, the tour can be divided in two main parts, highlands and lowlands plus the travel time in between which does not produce a lot of birds but for sure a few interesting ones. THE LOWLANDS: We start the tour with a longish drive between Sao Paulo and the coastal town of Ubatuba. There were a couple planned stops on the way though that produced some great birds. Leaving the hotel just before dawn we arrived in perfect time to an area that holds very nice wetlands located right next to the smaller city of Mogi das Cruzes. Here we found as highlights White-faced Whistling-Duck, Silver Teal, Blackish Rail, Gray-cowled Wood-Rail, Brazilian Teal and a few passerines and other smaller birds White-eyed and Plain Parakeets (photo below) on the border of the wetlands like Wing-banded Hornero, Streamer-tailed Tyrant, Crested Black-Tyrant, Masked Yellowthroat, Masked Water-Tyrant, and Unicolored Blackbirds to name a few. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.4 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 We then moved to another spot looking for a very localized species only found in a few reed beds on this region called Parana Antwren (aka Sao Paulo Marsh-Antwren). We gave it a good try but for most of the participants this bird remained hidden, only a couple managed quick views. This spot however produced a fair number of cool birds like Rufous-capped and Spix’s Spinetails, Orange-eyed Thornbird, White-spotted Woodpecker, White-barred Piculet, Chestnut-vented Conebill, the first of many Sayaca and Brazilian Tanagers, as well as a pair of Orange-headed Tanagers and a few other more common birds. One of the entertaining sightings we had on the first day was this Burrowing Owl. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.5 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 We had lunch in a local restaurant and continued our drive that still had a few hours to go. The traffic was quite bad when we approached the coast since a lot of locals were going to the beach for what was going to be the last of the warm days of the season. This delayed us a bit but we did manage to squeeze in about 45mins of nice birding before reaching our hotel. During this very rewarding time we soon got a couple of the most wanted birds for some participants in the shape of Red-necked and Green-headed Tanagers which came in flocks to feed right in front of our eyes at eye-level in a fruiting tree. We also got Scaled and Ferruginous Antbirds, Sombre Hummingbird, Gray-hooded Attila, Gray-headed Tody-Flycatcher and Saw-billed Hermit. It was a great end to our first day. The next day we went back to the area we had just birded last on the previous day but of course now we did have time to go much deeper on this beautifully forested road called Estrada da Folhia Seca. We in fact visited this spot three times during our stay in the area of Ubatuba. One of the first birds that we found here was in fact the most wanted target for one of the participants that was chasing bird families (he needed a Tapaculo) and it came in the shape of this Slaty Bristlefront (photo above). Some of the birds that we saw on our repeated visits to the area included Blond-crested Woodpecker, a female Bare-throated Bellbird, White- necked Hawk, Green-backed Trogon, Rufous-capped Motmot, Black-cheeked Gnateater, White-throated Spadebill, Long-tailed Tyrant, Rufous-capped Antthrush, White-shouldered Fire-eye, Spot-breasted and Plain Antvireos, Unicolored, Streak-capped and Rufous-winged Antwrens, to name a few. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.6 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 The distinctive subspecies of White-throated Spadebill (above) and the regional specialty Spot-breasted Antvireo (below). www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.7 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 A big target for every first-time visitor to SE Brazil is this Red-necked Tanager (above) www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.8 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 A very special spot within this area of Folha Seca is the gardens of Jonas’s house. Jonas is a local Brazilian that out of pure love for birds maintains a large set of fruit and hummingbird feeders in his patio. He welcomes people asking for no contribution of any kind, just good behavior and respect towards nature. It is a very good deal of course for us given the rich diversity of birds in his feeders. I always, however, buy at the market several pounds of sugar and a good amount of bananas to bring along as donation. In terms of hummingbirds his feeders are the very best spot to find Festive Coquette (photo below), Saw- billed Hermit, and White-chinned Sapphire. Apart from those, there were many Violet-capped Woodnymphs and Brazilian Rubies; we also saw Glittering-throated and Versicolored Emeralds but those were not as common. Other species of hummingbirds that we saw in lowlands but away from Jonas’s feeders were the tiny Reddish Hermit, the spectacular Swallow-tailed Hummingbird, and the dullest of the Brazilian endemics, Sombre Hummingbird. These last two we had at a local restaurant in front of the beach located just west of Ubatuba. This gorgeous Festive Coquette (above) is likely to be split; it is isolated from the other subspecies in northern South America. www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.9 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 Swallow-tailed Hummingbird (above) photographed at the feeders of Restaurante Tropical near Ubatuba www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.10 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 A male White-chinned Sapphire (above) and the superb Green-headed Tanagers (below) from Jonas’s feeders www.tropicalbirding.com +1-409-515-9110 [email protected] p.11 Tropical Birding - Trip Report BRAZIL: Atlantic Forest Highlights – July 2019 In terms of passerines, the fruit feeders attracted a great deal of birds, of which the favorite for many was Red-necked Tanager, but not too far behind in rank were the Green-headed and Brazilian Tanagers.