February 2-16, 2025 with Marcelo Barreiros
Welcome to Bahia, one of the most spectacular states in Brazil, combining Cerrado, Caatinga and Atlantic Rainforest biomes and incredible wildlife to explore. Bahia has one of the most beautiful forests in the world, humid, full of gorgeous huge bromeliads, home of precious jewels like the Pink-legged Graveteiro and Slender Antbird. We started our journey visiting an active quarry surrounded by a patch of Cerrado habitat, the only chance to see incredible birds like Blue Finch, Wedge-tailed Grass-finch, Lesser Elaenia and one of the most beautiful hummingbirds in the country, Horned Sungem. We were fortunate to see both male and female interacting for a few minutes in front of us. After a couple of hours birding around the quarry, we drove to Mata de São João, another lowland area, to do the first birding in the Atlantic Forest with the local guide Cóe who has a small hotel around and knows good places for birding, especially the most wanted species in the area, Fringe-backed Fire-eye. We walked for about one hour and saw nice birds like Ochre-backed Woodpecker, Sooretama Slaty-Antshrike, Bahia Antwren, White-bellied Tanager, and both Streaked and Plain (Atlantic) xenops while waiting for the rare Fringe-backed Fire-eye to respond. It did, and a nice adult male called back and stayed perched and singing for us for a few minutes. Before arriving in Conde, our destination, we made one more stop in a private forest fragment for some more great birds, especially the rare Pernambuco Foliage-gleaner, Blue-backed Manakin and Pale-bellied Tyrant-Manakin.
Our two nights in Conde were great. We went along the mangroves to see a very endangered population of Gray-breasted Parakeet, where about 200 individuals live in the area, depending on the mangroves to feed during most of the day. We also had a few gorgeous Golden-capped Parakeet, Caatinga Cacholote, and it was good for woodpeckers as well, with Lineated, Crimson-crested, Green-barred and White woodpeckers seen in a couple of hours. We still had time to enjoy a few different individuals of Rufous Crab Hawk, another target for the area seen in good numbers this year, and we tried a lot for the Little Wood-rail but could not see it, only heard it calling close. We also had time to make a nice stop in a marsh right outside the town of Conde, where we had more good surprises, like a responsive Azure Gallinule, Aplomado Falcon, and the elusive Pinnated Bittern, pretending to be part of the reeds, as usual. Our destination on that day was the town of Santo Antonio de Jesus, between Conde and Boa Nova and we found a good birding spot by a big lake. We did not have too much time, but it was enough to enjoy some nice new birds for us, like Great Antshrike, Yellow Tyrannulet, a group of Scarlet-throated Tanagers with at least 2 adult males, a pair of another target, Pectoral Antwren, and one of the greatest moments on the tour, a Peregrine Falcon chasing an adult Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle several times in flight.
On our way to Boa Nova, we detoured to the small city of Ipiaú to see one of the greatest NE Brazil endemics: the rare Pink-legged Graveteiro, which we had missed for three years in a row. This year, we saw a bird coming in response to the playback, and after a few minutes, going back to the van, we looked carefully and found both male and female were seen working on their nest, so we had great looks in the scope for several minutes. After that, we went straight to a special habitat found in Boa Nova, the vine forest, which is a forest between the Caatinga and Atlantic forest. This unique habitat is home to some amazing birds like Slender Antbird, Narrow-billed Antwren, and Hangnest Tody-Tyrant. We started the next morning in a gorgeous place called Lajedo dos Beija-flores, a private place which is a rocky area where several cacti grow on the rocks and are great for hummingbirds. The place belongs to a couple of birders now and they transformed the place to a beautiful garden with lots of other flowers and fruit feeders for birds. It's possible to see the gorgeous Ruby-topaz Hummingbird, the rare Hook-billed Hermit, and Sapphire-spangled Emerald, and they are also able to feed the special Slender Antbird, Silvery-cheeked Antshrike, Planalto Slaty-Antshrike and Great Antshrike. After a few hours enjoying the place, we went to a farm with a pond nearby where we had Gray-headed Spinetail, Yellow-browed Tyrant, Suiriri Flycatcher and a few Capybara in the water.
The Boa Nova area is always an amazing place to bird due to the location and the mix of habitats and one area in particular, which is now a National Park, has a humid forest full of birds. We visited the area in the afternoon and those few hours were enough to see the main targets like Bahia Spinetail, Rio de Janeiro Antbird, Fork-tailed Pygmy-Tyrant, Striated Softtail, Black-billed Scythbill, and Gray-headed Tody-Flycatcher, and in the evening, the Giant Snipe showed up briefly.
We planned to visit the humid forest one more time but it was raining hard, so we decided to drive straight to Itacaré and do more birding around the town in the afternoon. We cannot complain about that afternoon around Itacaré, where we saw the amazing Kinglet Manakin, Eared Pygmy-Tyrant, Opal-rumped Tanager (Silvery-breasted race), Blue-backed Manakin and Bare-throated Bellbird. The following morning was the day to look for one of the hardest birds of the tour, Bahia Tapaculo, a tiny bird that lives near to small water bodies in the forest. We tried two different spots and on the second one, a bird responded to the recording after a few minutes. The bird did something unusual this time, coming close to us quietly a couple of times before starting to sing, so not everyone could see it walking through the small trees and branches. After that, we also had time to see the nice Band-tailed Antwren, Racket-tipped Thorntail, a great look at Streak-capped Antwren, Golden-spangled Piculet and Green-headed Tanager. From Itacaré we drove south to the Conduru State Park and along the way we saw some açaí palm trees in fruit with two female White-winged Cotinga and a Cocoa Thrush feeding on them. Our main goal in the park is to find a rare hummingbird, Great-billed Hermit (margaretta's race, a potential split). As usual, the birds were not in lek, but we managed to call one with the recording and the bird perched for a couple of minutes in front of the group, so mission accomplished and before a nice lunch in Ilhéus, we had time to drive through a dirt road to see the rare Golden-headed Lion-Tamarin.
It was time to drive to one of my favorite places for birding in Brazil, Serra Bonita reserve, a protected mountain with lots of great birds for us. We started seeing Black-throated Grosbeak, Mantled Hawk, Rufous Gnateater and Plumbeous Antvireo. It's amazing to stay in a lodge inside the forest and have a chance to enjoy the Atlantic Rainforest without a lot of noise from the city. Even with some rain falling almost constantly, the bird activity was good in general and were able to walk along the trails to see great birds like Star-throated Antwren, Drab-breasted Pygmy-Tyrant, Spot-billed Toucanet, White-eyed and White-collared foliage-gleaners, Salvadori's Antwren moving with a mixed-species flock, and we walked up to the hill to get a very special one, Bahia Tyrannulet. Down to the lowlands, we made a stop to wait for one of the most celebrated birds in NE Brazil, male and female Banded Cotinga, seen feeding on the Açaí palm trees and besides that, we also had Yellow-fronted Woodpecker, Zone-tailed Hawk, Black-tailed Tityra and Marron-faced Parakeet.
So it was time to visit the last place on the tour, Porto Seguro, one of the first cities in Brazil where the great Estação Veracel private reserve is. We went straight to the forest to see some birds in the afternoon and it was quite productive with Bahia Antwren, Wedge-billed Woodcreeper (cuneatus group), Yellow-green Grosbeak and the beautiful Black-headed Berryeater.
We went back to the reserve again to do more and stopped at the headquarters, where we saw a group of the gorgeous Ochre-marked Parakeet feeding in a palm tree, but we could not drive too long because the road that crosses the reserve is in the worst shape I've ever seen. We left the van and walked along the road where we saw a female Ringed Woodpecker (Black-breasted race), another Black-headed Berryeater and Rufous-throated Sapphire. We also tried for the rare White-winged Potoo with no response but we saw a Tawny-browed Owl flying across the road a few times.
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/346514
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/bbh25TRIPLIST.pdf
-- Marcelo Barreiros