Not sure which Brazil tour to choose? Click to see a complete listing and comparison of all our Brazil trips.

The Rio Negro is the crown jewel of Amazonia. Born in the ancient sands of the Guianan Shield, her dark waters course over foaming rapids and through vast island archipelagos to meet the Amazon at Manaus. Second only to the Amazon in volume of water, the Negro drains a huge portion of the northern Amazon Basin. For birds, it is a wonderful place to live. For birders, it is a wonderful place to bird! So get out your map of the Amazon and start planning to spend a couple of weeks birding some of the world’s most amazing forests.

The city of Manaus, gateway to one of the greatest avifaunas on Earth, is a place every birder who’s ever dreamed of birding the Amazon has got to visit. Our tour of the Rio Negro begins near Manaus with four days in a variety of climax Amazonian rainforest habitats. We’ll do some serious nightbirding here as we go for White-winged, Long-tailed, and Rufous potoos on forest trails. By day we’ll be dealing with mixed-species flocks in both the understory and canopy, and searching for raiding swarms of army ants between visits to display areas of such world-class cotingas as Guianan Cockof-the-rock, Capuchinbird, and possibly also Guianan Red-Cotinga. We will have the privilege of birding from the INPA research tower north of Manaus at the beginning of the trip (and on another INPA tower close to town at end of the tour)!

Then it’s back to Manaus to take the bridge across the Rio Negro to the west side, where we’ll have two days to bird a variety of habitats ranging from Mauritia Palm swamps to tall, undisturbed rainforest and seasonally flooded blackwater woodland, where we hope to find Point-tailed Palmcreeper, Fiery Topaz, Chestnut-headed Nunlet, and perhaps even Nocturnal Curassow. At the old Amazonian town of Manacapuru, we’ll board our private boat to bird the lower Rio Solimões, that section of the Amazon west of the meeting of the waters with the Negro (an amazing spot to see!), followed by several days in the singularly beautiful Anavilhanas Archipelago, now Anavilhanas National Park, and remote and unspoiled Jau National Park, eastern section of the second-largest conservation area in the world and home to numerous special birds, such as Tawny-tufted Toucanet, Pavonine Quetzal, Bar-bellied Woodcreeper, Chestnut-crested Antbird, and Reddish-winged Bare-eye. Our boat is nigh-on luxurious, featuring air-conditioned cabins with private bathrooms and great meals any time we want them. The open-air top deck is a great spot for an icy caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil. Life is grand out on these rivers; there’s nothing to do but bird, eat, and sleep!

But can we really do the Manaus area full justice in just a couple of weeks? The answer is “No.” We are learning that it could take a lifetime to sleuth out her many avian secrets. And we won’t even take time to cross the Amazon; that would entail simply too much (so we’ll leave southern Amazonia for separate tours at Alta Floresta, the Rio Roosevelt, and our Great Rivers of the Amazon boat-based tours!). Join us and discover why we feel that the Rio Negro is paradise in the Amazon.

Select the KEY INFO tab or click here for our itinerary plus space requests, status, fees, limits, and guides for any departure.

Client comment
"I've taken three other Field Guides tours and they all ran very smoothly and have been very enjoyable. Your office staff members are more responsive than those with other companies, and your guides are uncommonly nice in addition to being top-notch birders. I enjoyed the tour from start to finish. I'd absolutely travel with guides Marcelo Barreiros and Dave Stejskal again. Field Guides is top notch." J.L., RIO NEGRO PARADISE: