If you have contacted us for this itinerary, you probably already have a pretty good idea of the birding treasure we're going after in southeastern Brazil. This region of South America has more species of birds restricted to it than any other, and many of them are among the rarest birds on the continent. The northern hemisphere fall—which is springtime in southern Brazil—is the best time of year to bird there, and our start date has been carefully tweaked over many years to optimize our probability of picking up all migrants returning to breed as well as our chances of having good weather: On average, we're not too early, not too late; not too dry nor too wet. And our guides are, shall we say, pretty "in touch" with things down there; nobody else has our local network and depth of experience.

Starting back in 2009, we split our traditional 26-day adventure into two slightly expanded tours at the Tropic of Capricorn (about 23 degrees South latitude), the official division between the Tropics and the South Temperate Zone. These tours are perfectly complementary whether taken separately or in tandem. NORTH OF THE TROPIC, at 18 days (including travel to and from Brazil), takes you through the tiny but mighty (birdy, that is!) states of Espirito Santo and Rio de Janeiro plus far northern Sao Paulo. SOUTH OF THE CAPRICORN picks up from Sao Paulo and runs for another 17 days south through the gaucho country of Rio Grande do Sul, a region settled by Italian and German immigrants and so culturally different from the north that you may wonder if we are truly still in Brazil! Thus, you can keep the legend alive with nearly a month in the field. So be sure your seat back's up and tray table stowed, and come on down! Oh, and if you’re wondering why we didn’t list a ton of bird names, we decided to put them in the detailed day-by-day section of the itinerary so you’ll have time to read something else today!

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