January 18-February 4, 2025 with Bret Whitney (ext. from Jan. 16)
2025 was another highly successful run of this centipede-of-a-tour, several legs of which are among the longest of any tours we offer. About half the days begin (and also end) nailing high-quality, endemic species, with long drives through the hotter, midday periods. This year was significantly wetter than average, with rain on more than half the days, and heavy downpours on parts of a few days. We managed to work around (or under) the rain to pick up all of the endemics at one point or another, and François Grenon, who ably handled our eBird chores, said the total list (without the Fernando de Noronha extension) was about 350, with very few of those “heard only”. You may notice that the accompanying eBird tour report indicates that 107 of the species we saw are marked as lifers. Those were lifers for François, who was on his first birding trip to the Atlantic Forest of eastern Brazil, which will help any of you out there thinking about taking this tour to focus especially on those species for pre-trip study. Our group was a friendly, happy mix, with several folks actively spotting birds all the time.
I met François and Leah den Besten in the Recife airport on 17 January, and we grabbed lunch and caught the flight out to the Fernando de Noronha islands. This is a volcanic archipelago some 350 km out in the Atlantic. It’s a low-key resort destination for Brazilians (especially honeymooners), and has lots of quaint little hotels and restaurants. You need to register and pay visitation fees to set foot on the islands. We were met there by local guide Daniel Oliveira, who I have known for years. He did a fine job of shepherding us around to the various lookout points, and filling us in on the history of the place, etc. All of the birds are easy out there, with the sometimes exception of Red-billed Tropicbird (we finally found one this time). We immediately had great, long looks at Noronha Elaenia and Noronha Vireo, and visited multiple boardwalks and prominences to watch breeding Red-footed, Brown, and Masked boobies; Black and Brown noddies, Sooty Terns, and White (Fairy) Terns of the range-restricted, nominate Atlantic subspecies; and White-tailed Tropicbirds. Oh, and 15+ Squacco Herons (which have been there for years now) and about 50 Magnificent Frigatebirds – many fewer than on any of my previous three visits. We also saw a couple of Green Sea Turtles, and a pod of about a dozen Spinner Dolphins, which was really exciting even though they weren’t spinning/jumping. Meanwhile, the remaining six of our Northeast Brazil group had arrived in Recife with all of their luggage, and enjoyed a restorative evening at our wonderful hotel on the beach, followed by an over-the-top breakfast buffet before meeting up with me and François and Leah for the 1.5-hour drive to the little town of Palmares. We got in a couple of hours of birding near town, then had an early dinner and off to bed in preparation for a very early start tomorrow.
When it comes to finding very rare endemics, the single most “high-pressure” day of birding on the tour – on any of our Brazil tours, really – is the first full day, out of Palmares, when we hit two critically important reserves: Frei Caneca and Pedra D’Antas. Logistics are complex, requiring multiple things falling into place including, unfortunately, early rainy-season weather; written permits to visit the reserves paid and in hand; 03:30 meet in the lobby with luggage and departure for a 04:00 breakfast at a 24-hour restaurant at the edge of town; 1.5 hour drive in the van to meet two (this year) 4WD vehicles with drivers waiting for us; local guide at Frei Caneca waiting for us at the 4WD meetup; a 1-hour drive on nasty, narrow dirt/clay roads through miles of hilly sugarcane fields (must be at least reasonably dry; rain that morning would likely ruin us); full-on lunch at Frei Caneca ready for sit-down by noon; another 1-hour drive on even narrower sugarcane roads; local guide at Pedra D’Antas being there to open hummer feeders, etc.; another 1.5-hour drive on sugarcane roads back to our van, and then a 2+ hour drive on paved roads to our resort hotel at Tamandaré, on the coast. Oh yeah, and the birds! Ideally, we start birding between 06:30 and 07:00 (it was 06:45 this year, thanks to dry roads) and see Willis’s Antbird, Orange-bellied Antwren, Scalloped Antbird, Black-cheeked Gnateater, Plain-winged Woodcreeper (endemic ssp taunayi, a no-brainer that hasn’t been split yet), and Alagoas Tyrannulet before lunch. We did that this year, and made it to lunch about 11:45 – perfeito! If anything else had shown up that morning, it would have been gravy (White-collared Kite, Mantled Hawk, et al.). The drive to Pedra D’Antas went fine and the hummer feeders were hopping, with several endemic Long-tailed Woodnymphs in attendance. Seven-colored Tanager and Pinto’s Spinetail were the two endemics we were still needing to find that day, but time ran out; we would have to find them and White-collared Kite, along with several others, tomorrow.
Birding next morning was at a private property owned by a sugarcane company, a little over an hour from Tamandaré. A stop at our traditional spot for Yellow-faced Siskin came up empty. The road through the sugarcane can be a quagmire, making access impossible, but it wasn’t too bad this time, and the morning was clear and sunny. I played recordings of White-collared Kite at a couple of spots where we’ve seen them in the past, and got a distant answer. A few minutes later, Joe hollered, “There’s a raptor!” and sure enough, it was an adult kite! It and possibly also a second bird showed nicely several times over the next 15 minutes, even performing display flights right over our group. I spotted a male White-winged Cotinga (and later, also a female), which we haven’t seen on the tour for several years now, then, to my relief, I heard a distant Pinto’s Spinetail. We came away with excellent views of the Pinto’s and also a pair of Sooty-fronted Spinetails, and then also had good views of a White-shouldered Antshrike (local, endemic ssp. distans), Chestnut-backed Antshrike, and Opal-rumped (“Silvery-breasted”) Tanagers, but no sign of Seven-colored Tanager. We had lunch back in Tamandaré then took a couple of hours’ siesta before hitting nearby mangroves for quick Bicolored Conebill and Plain-bellied Emerald. We then lucked out bigtime by finding a pair of rare Forbes’s Blackbirds gathering nest material followed by a peek at Ash-throated Crake and excellent scope views of several Jandaya Parakeets to close out an awesome day. It rained hard that night into the breakfast hour, so it looked grim for our chances of getting back into yesterday’s birding area, or another spot very near it. Rain let up fairly quickly, and we tried again for Yellow-faced Siskin, this time getting scope views of an adult male, thanks to great spotting by François, with a couple of pernambucensis Golden-spangled Piculets on the side. As feared, the dirt roads were a total mess, no way we would risk having problems, especially because we had only a couple of hours to bird before high-tailing it to the airport in Recife for a flight to Fortaleza. All things considered, I reckoned there was maybe one last, longshot chance to come up with a Seven-colored Tanager: stop on the side of the main, paved road where a tongue of old second-growth borders it, and try to pull birds up to the edge. I got out and started pygmy-owl tooting and playing scolding recordings. It took a good 5 minutes of that before a few common birds (Bananaquits, Blue Dacnis, Burnished-buff Tanager) started to show up, then, after persisting for another 5-10 minutes (there was nothing else to do), a few more interesting things began to approach from a forested hillside over 100 meters away (Red-stained Woodpecker, Guira Tanager). We stuck with it, now with numerous birds popping around, and suddenly François screamed, “SEVEN-COLORED TANAGER!!” Those of you who know him can easily imagine the scene, hahaha! Over the course of the next few, exciting minutes, the distant pair of tanagers he spotted with his scope came in fairly close and everyone had a really nice view, a huge moment! I’ll include the fun, impromptu interview I filmed with François and the group here in the triplist. We made it to the airport just in time to check in, hit an excellent lunch buffet, and slide on to the plane. Whew!
Our excellent driver of several years now was there to meet us at the Fortaleza airport for the (uneventful) 3-hour drive to the Serra de Baturité. The Remanso Hotel de Serra there is the only lodging we have not changed since we inaugurated birding tourism to NE Brazil in 1993. It’s perfectly located in a forested setting with great birding on the grounds and an organized and very helpful staff. Birding at Serra de Baturité was wet, but productive: we had excellent views of Ochraceous Piculet, Gray-breasted Parakeet, Gould’s Toucanet (endemic ssp. baturitensis), Black-capped Antwren, Buff-breasted Tody-Tyrant, Ceara Gnateater, Pale-legged Hornero, Gray-headed Spinetail, Rufous-breasted Leaftosser, and Pectoral Sparrow. We also had a great look at the rare, unnamed population of Short-tailed Antthrush endemic to the Serra de Baturité, which has a highly distinctive song. Our next venue, the Hotel Pedra dos Ventos outside the little town of Quixadá was again a very pleasant one-night stay, and produced the usual, wonderful views of Pygmy Nightjars right beside the restaurant, four White-browed Guans coming in to cracked corn, Harris’s Hawk, a couple of Black-chested Buzzard-Eagles, a gorgeous Ochre-backed Woodpecker, and our first Cobalt-rumped Parrotlets, Spot-backed Puffbirds, White-naped Jays, and Tufted-ear (white-tufted subspecies jacchus) Marmosets, but the scrubby caatinga woodland clinging to the slopes there was very quiet, so we took off fairly early the next morning for the long drive south to Crato and the Chapada do Araripe. Moving south through Ceará, the landscape was verdant, absolutely nonstop green and with numerous small to large ponds along the highways where we picked up Masked Duck and Southern Pochard, both of which were high on some folks’ wishlists – and even a Comb Duck, which I hadn’t seen on the tour in 10+ years. It was a hot, sunny day and the front seats in the Sprinter van, where the driver and I were seated, were uncomfortably hot even with the AC full-on. And, then, about 10:30, the AC went out, and the whole van became toasty. We continued along with all windows down and made it to our hotel in Crato at about 16:00. We had called ahead to arrange a fix of the AC and another van to use tomorrow.
The new van was just a tad smaller, but it was just what we needed for our first day of birding the Chapada do Araripe. We had a well-appointed, 05:00 breakfast at the hotel and started out of town in a light rain that became heavier as we ascended the 900-meter plateau. Getting out of the van as the rain let up, nothing was vocalizing and it looked like a quiet, drippy morning was in store. The first hour was indeed pretty birdless, but I managed to get a few birds going with playback. We had a great view of a pair of Red-shouldered Spinetails, followed by a skulking (as always) Ochre-cheeked Spinetail that eventually stayed put (not always) for scope views (almost never), and then a stunning male Northern Silvery-cheeked Antshrike, Sakesphoroides niedeguidonae, which was described only in 2024 by a small group of Brazilian researchers who did an excellent job of figuring out and documenting that this bird is best considered a species distinct from birds south of the Rio São Francisco, now called Southern Silvery-cheeked Antshrike, Sakesphoroides cristatus. I had e-mailed everybody a .pdf of the description before the tour. By this time, the rain was long gone, the sun was up high, and birds were singing all around. Pairs of Cactus Parakeets were whizzing around, everyone had a nice view of a pair of Stripe-backed Antbirds (an awesome bird!), and a Cinnamon Tanager also performed well. A couple of White-browed Antpittas were singing a short ways off the trail, so I opened a bit of a path in to a place where we could try to call one into view. That worked like a charm, and one of the antpittas allowed everyone repeated, very close views. More pairs of spinetails and antshrikes came in to scolding vocalizations, along with our first very close, curious Caatinga Antwren and a singing male Ultramarine Grosbeak. We were buzzing with excitement at all of the action around us; it turned out to be a really fun early morning! We then zipped back downslope to the Arajara Park for Araripe Manakin, and lunch. The scene at the park at noon on a sunny Sunday was overwhelming. Something like 100 cars and buses jammed the parking lots, and there were literally hundreds of people and excited kids inside the park and waiting in lines to get in. It took us half an hour to make it through the gates, even using the “Prioridades por Lei” line for folks over 60 (of which we were only 4 of 9). Then, when we finally got down to the area for the manakin, we were told that there was a wasp nest that was dangerous, with lots of wasps flying around, and we would have to wait for it to settle down. So, we had lunch (more long lines), which was fine, then tried again. They allowed us in, but only to about the halfway point – which, happily, was enough for us to get soul-satisfying scope views and photos of a couple of fabulous male Araripe Manakins. We then returned to the hotel for a short break before heading back out to the Chapada for a late-afternoon bit of birding (got Pale-bellied Tyrant-Manakin and Planalto Slaty-Antshrike), then checklist and dinner in the field as it was getting dark enough for owling. Everything was working perfectly… except the weather. Towering, dark, lightning-splattered clouds dominated the horizon. It seemed far off as we arrived, but just as we wrapped up the checklist and dinner, I could hear the roar of a heavy rain coming our way. I told folks we had about a minute to get in the van, but it turned out to be about 30 seconds before the deluge arrived. We were a couple of kilometers back in the woodland along a narrow, dirt track, so we blasted out of there as quickly as possible. That was our only decent shot at most of the nightbirds on our list, including Buff-fronted Owl, which all of us were really hoping we would see.
Running well ahead on the endemics scorecard, we had breakfast at the hotel a bit later than usual. Our van was returned to the hotel last night, with perfect AC (which was fine the rest of the tour). We made a “reinforcing” birding stop before leaving the Chapada in the rearview mirror to traverse the long, low badlands of interior Pernambuco. It was another front seat, sun-in-your-face drive with our traditional lunch stop along the way. As we got out of the van, I heard Scarlet-throated Tanagers, which can be tough to get some years. Fortunately, they ripped right in to playback and we had superb views of a scarlet-throated male, then also a group of three Suiriri Flycatchers and several White-throated Seedeaters and Red-cowled Cardinals. We made a post-lunch stop in some relatively well-developed caatinga and quickly found Ash-throated Casiornis and Black-bellied Antwren, but no Stripe-breasted Starthroat or White-naped Xenopsaris. We then drove pretty much non-stop (except for rest stops) past Lagoa Grande to try for a few more caatinga birds near Petrolina. We started with an ideal comparison of Greater and Bahia wagtail-tyrants, White Monjita, Campo Troupial, the “caatinga” ssp. of Barred Antshrike (capistratus: red eyes, plumage more spotted than barred), then kicked up several Least Nighthawks from the same spot we have shown them to tour groups for years now. On our way back out to the highway, Matthew spotted a bird walking along the far side of a clearing… a White-bellied Nothura! We rarely even hear a nothura these days, and spotting one in a year with lush ground vegetation is essentially hopeless. That bird stayed in view for over a minute -- way to go, Matt! The drive to our nice hotel on the bank of the Rio São Francisco in Petrolina was interrupted for an hour by repair work happening on the bridge across the river that completely fouled traffic patterns. We were only a mile from the hotel (eye-roll emoji).
Having made our way to the outback town of Canudos, Bahia, we drove to the edge of the Raso da Catarina Biological Station to bird a trail that has been good for Stripe-breasted Starthroat and several other birds. Action was good, we soon had at least three brilliant male Ruby Topaz hummers around us, and this is where John Nolan spotted our one-and-only Stripe-breasted Starthroat – a hummer that he and Maria Helena (along with the rest of us) particularly wanted to see on this tour! Then, with some recording playback, we pulled up a male Broad-tipped Hermit for very close, repeated views and photos; a second male came in to chase around with it. We also saw our only Fulvous-crowned Scrub-Tyrants (what’s that?) of the tour there. Verrry early the next morning, all of the logistics for our rarified visit to the breeding cliffs of the Indigo Macaw fell into place: I made us breakfast at 03:30, the 4WD drivers showed up on time, we got away at 04:10 under a partly cloudy sky, and the roads were quite dry and easy to navigate for the 1+ hour drive to the redrock canyons of the Raso da Catarina. As usual, the macaws were just beginning to stir as we got out of the trucks, first faint light of day, Homer’s “rosy-fingered dawn”. This is always a very exciting moment – we are suddenly, unexpectedly, right in the middle of it as pairs of macaws are lifting off to fly long distances to feeding sites, and you hear dozens of birds on all sides. It’s a primordial scene and the acoustics are truly immersive! Within minutes we are scoping pairs and small groups perched on distant trees or atop columnar cacti – and sunrise is still nearly an hour away. We made our way down to the canyon rim, the path to which has now been worked to make the hike on rocky terrain much easier. The macaws were happy birds in this wet, lush year, and multiple pairs were copulating on the cliffs near nesting cavities. A couple of hours after sunrise, as we had thoroughly enjoyed the macaws and seeing a few other birds like Blue-crowned Parakeets and very distant Turquoise-fronted Parrots and Black-chested Buzzard-Eagles, we left the canyon to return to the hotel for check-out and have time to make a birding stop for Pectoral Antwren. By about 10:30, it was hot and sunny, but a male antwren soon came in to playback, and we also enjoyed a spectacular view of Red-billed Scythebill. While we were working on the antwren, John Nolan remarked, “There’s a little owl siting here.” I figured it would be a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, but it was an adult Tropical Screech-Owl. Leah then noticed a tree cavity only about waist-high, right on the side of the trail, and Bill’s peek inside revealed two fluffy baby owls, one brown and the other gray. We will definitely be checking on that every year now! Later that morning, Leah also spotted a pair of Red-legged Seriemas hanging out in the shade of an isolated tree, where they stayed for a couple of minutes of scope viewing. A couple of hours after lunch, I called a brief, late-afternoon stop to stretch legs and see if the Pectoral Antwren pair we have relied on several times over recent years was hanging in there (they showed up right away, nice to see a female) and we briefly got a small flock of Golden-capped Parakeets (which are common farther south in Bahia). That huge day went like clockwork, and we rolled into the little town of Catú around sunset with accolades for our wonderful, safe driver! Next morning, we used two smaller vehicles to navigate a series of narrow dirt roads for an early attempt at finding Fringe-backed Fire-eye and several other local endemic birds. I put all of our luggage into my room so our driver could have a leisurely breakfast, load the van about 09:00, and drive out to meet us about 10:00 to continue on yet another lonnng drive west to Mucugê, in the Chapada Diamantina. We eventually found the fire-eyes at a Labidus praedator army-ant swarm in the middle of the road (nice!), along the way picking up a few other “easier” endemics: Bahia Antwren, Sooretama Slaty-Antshrike, Plain-winged Woodcreeper (nominate, very different from taunayi seen earlier), Eared Pygmy-Tyrant, Stripe-necked Tody-Tyrant, Yellow-backed Tanager, and also the nominate form of Golden-spangled Piculet. We were looking forward to exciting birding in the Chapada Diamantina, where there is a lot to see, and seek.
Breakfast and birding started in our traditional cerrado stop west of town, where we quickly found Rufous-sided Scrub-Tyrant and Gray-backed Tachuri followed by properly pleasing views of singing Collared Crescentchests and White-banded Tanager (good spotting, Leah!). While we were enjoying the crescentchests, I heard a short call that sounded like a Rusty-backed Antwren, which is known to occur in more distant areas of cerrado in the Diamantina, but which we have never found on the tour. I gave it some playback, and sure enough, a pair popped up and moved in quite close! This is a relatively widespread species that was not a lifer for any of us, but I was really excited to find it there, only a few kilometers from the nearest Sincora Antwrens, a close relative of Rusty-backed endemic to the Diamantina. As in 2023, there were some Cliff Swallows over the cerrado, and a surprisingly active passage of Fork-tailed Flycatchers, most of which were heavily worn and in molt, probably birds moving through from breeding areas far to the south (Argentina/Paraguay; I’ll be able to verify this with my photos showing wing formula). Later that morning, we had great views of Narrow-billed Antwrens, Northern Silvery-cheeked Antshrike, and Hangnest Tody-Tyrant. We tried to find a Sincora Antwren on the way back to town for lunch, then again in the afternoon, but no luck. We visited the RPPN (private national heritage reserve) near Mucugê for hummer activity. It was hot and sunny, and the red Callandria flowers were about half open, so there was not much happening until later, on our way out, when Matthew spotted a perched hummer that turned out to be an immature male Hooded Visorbearer! It was hawking insects, repeatedly returning to a perch where we could get it in the scope. Another male in more advanced plumage showed up a bit later, and then also a female. We were able to ease in close to them for excellent views. Then François, who was hanging back to look for a black-tyrant with his scope, spotted a Brown Violetear and called us over for a good view (this is the extremely local, endemic ssp. greenewalti). Driving back past town, we came into a massive flock of Streptoprocne swifts flying fairly low over the road. There were a few White-collared Swifts in the mix with hundreds of Biscutate Swifts, which came by repeatedly for ideal viewing and photos. We then called on a Diamantina Tapaculo at just the right hour, and the male responded immediately! Not three minutes later, everyone was giggling with delight at seeing this rare tapaculo (any tapaculo, actually) so amazingly well – both adults and a juv showed to perfection. Beleza!
We revisited the hummer area early the next morning in hopes of a Horned Sungem, but it was cool and overcast and there were essentially no hummers active there. A couple of stops for Sincora Antwren were fruitless, but we had fine views of Rufous-winged Antshrike and Plain-crested and Lesser elaenias. We made it Lençóis at lunchtime only to find that the town was absolutely packed with locals and tourists there for the annual celebration of the Patron Saint of the town. After lunch, we checked in at the thoroughly charming Pousada Canto das Águas, had a siesta, then drove straight to a territory of Sincora Antwrens that had been super-reliable before it burned to a crisp in 2016. It was still mostly blackened and unoccupied when the pandemic hit, and the antwrens still weren’t back in there the last time I checked, in 2022. I figured, however, they would be back by this year, especially as lush as the vegetation was – and yep, the male and female showed up within 2-3 minutes of our arrival and performed beautifully! We then went up to the end of the road at Morro do Pai Inácio, where for years there has been a highly reliable male Hooded Visorbearer holding territory. The trail up to the spot is well-worn, with good footing, but it is an exercise in bouldering: very steep in places, and requires significant leg strength and balance. An eBird list showed that the visorbearer had been photographed just the week before, so I figured it would be a lock – but nothing doing. The rocky shrub zone up there was very dry, with no flowers at all and there were lots of loud, weekend tourists on the trail. We did have fine views of Velvety Black-Tyrant, Small-headed Elaenia, Stripe-tailed Yellow-Finch, and Buff-throated Pampa-Finch.
Our final morning saw us up and away from the Canto das Águas at 05:30 (after another fabulous breakfast!) to bird the drier, semideciduous woodland near Palmeiras, about an hour west of Lençóis. Our only remaining target was Sao Francisco Sparrow, although several other potential finds would be new for us. As we were driving out the far side of town, an East Brazilian Chachalaca flew across the road, so I stopped the van and we got out to play a recording. A pair of chachalacas jumped right up and hollered back at us, which was shocking and hilarious! We tried every trick in the book for the sparrow with not whiff of it, although the habitat actually looked great, the best in years — Note: Sao Francisco Sparrow is easily seen on our Blue-eyed Ground-Dove tour ;-). We did have another good view of Broad-tipped Hermit before calling it quits at about 09:00 and heading out for the long trip to Salvador. (To avoid this lengthy, generally boring drive Lençóis to Salvador next year, we will again try hard to align with the finnicky Azul Airlines flight schedule). With a good lunch stop in Itaberaba, and a couple of rest and ice cream stops, we made it to our hotel on the coast at 17:30. Marcelo was there waiting for us, ready to start the Bahia Birding Bonanza tour in the morning. He would have a group of six, including three of us from Northeast Brazil (François, Leah, and Matthew), and three new arrivals already at the hotel. We did our final checklist and votes for “top three birds/events” of the tour with caipirinhas at the rooftop bar of our hotel, for a dramatic view over the ocean and the city of Salvador, at dusk.
Thank you all very much for choosing to bird Northeast Brazil with Field Guides! I was delighted to be your guide, and thoroughly enjoyed birding with all of you. I look forward to sharing more of big, beautiful Brazil with you in the future!
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/328365
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/neb25TRIPLIST.pdf
-- Bret