June 11, 2024 to June 26, 2024
Guided by Marcelo Barreiros
Back to one of my favorites tours in Brazil: three biomes, lots of great birds, food, landscapes, and experiences. The Rainforest & Savanna tour this year was amazing, as usual, starting with two nights at Chapada dos Guimarães in the charming Pousada Cambará, owned by Mrs Genoveva and Mr Odenir who made everything possible to make our days there fantastic. The official road to Chapada was closed due a landslide, so we had to make a long detour, and even before arriving at the hotel we made a stop along the Água Fria road in nice Cerrado habitat to see Band-rumped Tanager, Collared Crescentchest, White-eared Puffbird, White-banded Tanager, Black-throated Saltator, Swallow-tailed Hummingbird and Red-crested Finch. The following morning started early, with a visit to another great place called Jamacá das Araras, where a nice couple (Jeanne and Mario) are feeding birds such as Amazonian Motmot, Pale-crested Woodpecker, and the big stars, Undulated and Tataupa tinamous that come to eat corn in front of their kitchen. We also saw the rarely seen Pavonine Cuckoo as well as Black-fronted Nunbird, Red-shouldered Macaw, and Large-billed Antwren. From there we drove to the Vale da Benção road, a place with a taller forest and different birds like Planalto Slaty-Antshrike, Streaked Xenops, Olivaceous Woodcreeper, Lettered Aracari, and a family of Brown Jacamars by the end of the road. After lunch we went to the Geladeira road for a couple of hours of birding and had Plumbeous Seedeater, Planalto Slaty-Antshrike, and Masked Gnatcatcher.
Our second morning was quick and we decided to bird at the hotel grounds because we had a 3-hour detour to get in Cuiabá around 10am. It was good to see birds like Buff-throated Saltator, Saffron-billed Sparrow, Gilded hummingbird, Channel-billed Toucan, and Amazonian Motmot again. One our way to Cuiabá we saw a pair of Red-legged Seriemas, Curl-crested Jay, Campo Flicker, White Woodpecker, and Blue-and-yellow Macaw. After a short flight to Alta Flroesta and about 90 minutes of driving, we took our boat to the Cristalino Jungle Lodge along the Teles Pires and Cristalino rivers, where we saw our first Spangled Cotinga and White-winged, White-banded, and Southern Rough-winged swallows. Those days at Cristalino were magical, always with fantastic moments and birds like a Crested Eagle flying towards the tower from a long distance, Spangled and Pompadour cotingas feeding right next to us, Bare-eyed Antbird, White-winged Tanager, Black-spotted Bare-Eye, Snow-capped and White-crowned manakins, and Spot-backed Antbird seen very relaxed on the bathing stations, and many tanagers like Paradise, Turquoise, Blue-necked, Masked, and White-shouldered.
The trails and both towers were active, but there were not many flocks this year and we had to walk a lot to find the birds or wait on top of the towers for activity. Along the Cristalino rivers, we also had nice moments with Sunbittern, lots of Capped Herons, and Hoatzin. We heard a Zigzag Heron but it never showed itself, and near the end of the tour we saw two of the greatest highlights, a male Harpy Eagle sitting at the border of Ariostro Island for more than an hour and three male Amazonian Umbrellabirds flying and displaying on the same island on the very last morning there.
And then we arrived in the Pantanal, land of giants like the Hyacinth Macaw and the Jaguar, two of our tour's biggest stars, and they did not disappoint us! We had great weather during our days in the Pantanal starting at Rio Claro lodge, moving to Piuval where, during an afternoon walk near the lodge, a Jaguar walked over our footprints and we did not see anything besides our first Hyacinth Macaw and the Black-bellied Antwren. Fortunately, we had fantastic encounters with Jaguars along the Cuiabá River, where we also saw Subtropical Doradito, Double-collared, White-bellied, and Rusty-collared seedeaters, Scarlet-headed Blackbird, and Hyacinth Macaw. We still had great moments at Aymara Lodge, seeing birds like the Great Rufous Woodcreeper, Red-billed Scythebill, Plain Antvireo, Mato Grosso Antbird, Sunbittern, and Pale-bellied Tyrant-Manakin.
Thank you all for the great tour!
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/263997
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/alp24TRIPLIST.pdf
Marcelo Barreiros