For our tour description, itinerary, past triplists, dates, fees, and more, please VISIT OUR TOUR PAGE.

See this triplist in printable PDF format with media only on page 1.

A pair of Scarlet Macaws flies by our group at Cristalino Jungle Lodge. Photo by guide Marcelo Padua.

As a tour guide, I am often asked if I don’t get tired of doing the same tours over and over again; I always answer "no", as each tour is completely different from the previous one. This year’s Alta Floresta and Pantanal tour is proof that I’m not lying, as it was like no tour I had ever led before. We started things at Chapada dos Guimaraes, a well-known birding destination just a few kilometers from Cuiaba. Though there were plenty of the usual suspects that we hope to find at this site, such as White-banded and White-rumped tanagers, Plain-crested Elaenia, Plumbeous Seedeater and Pale-breasted Spinetail, we also came across a variety of birds that are rarely seen, including Crowned Eagle, Checkered Woodpecker and the endangered Yellow-faced Parrot, so we were off to an auspicious start.

Cristalino was next, and forest birding is in an entirely different ball game. The dark understory makes it even harder to see birds that are shy by nature, and the canopy is so far up that even the most colorful birds sometimes look like dark spots in the sky. Fortunately, the two observation towers at Cristalino leveled the playing field for us, and with fruiting trees close to both of them, we struck gold, as a myriad of tanagers, toucans, toucanets, aracaris, cotingas and parrots came in for close inspection by our group. In the understory, unusual levels of understory flock activity allowed us to study those antbirds one by one in the many days that we walked the forest. While mixed species flocks are the bread and butter of forest birding, antswarms are the feast for the hungry birder, and we were extremely lucky to find one that produced incredible looks at the extremely localized Bare-eyed Antbird and the army ant specialist White-chinned Woodcreeper. There are plenty of birds that do not partake in such gatherings and so we needed to work hard to find them, an effort that was well rewarded by great looks at birds such as Pavonine Quetzal, Zigzag Heron, Musician Wren, Razor-billed Curassow, Amazonian Umbrellabird, Brown-banded Puffbird and the elusive Dark-winged Trumpeter, which we found on a couple of occasions. Once again Cristalino had been kind to us.

Our last stop was the famous Pantanal and it was here that our tour went from great to extraordinary. The profusion of birds, and the ease with which they were seen, was refreshing after our many days of forest birding, quickly slowing our pace and preparing us for what would be the one of the most thrilling days I ever had in the Pantanal. It started as any other day in the Pantanal, with Chaco Chachalacas announcing the start of a new day while Hyacinth Macaws called loudly from a nearby palm tree. We took advantage of the early morning activity to bird the grounds of our lodge and enjoyed prolonged looks at a pair of Jabirus building their nest, up-close looks at American Pygmy-Kingfisher and many others, making for a productive morning of birding. After lunch, we began to make our way towards Porto Jofre, where we would spend two nights and hopefully see a Jaguar.

At least that was the plan. But as we cruised down the road, a Jaguar ran across the road. We would have been thrilled with that, if it wasn't for the fact that only four people had seen it -- and two of them were the driver and me. We decided to go a bit further to see if the Jaguar would come back to the road, but sadly, that didn't happen. However, only a few moments later, a smaller individual appeared on the road and we all got great looks at it. This was a rare treat: in the many years that I have guided in the Pantanal, I had only seen a Jaguar on the road a couple of times, so I had just doubled my number of road sightings in a few minutes. This Jaguar ran back into the bushes as a car came in the opposite direction, so we continued on our journey, only to find yet another Jaguar -- this one a nursing female -- again on the road, about an hour later. We turned off the bus and watched in complete disbelief. It walked towards us until it was right in front of the bus; there it sat and licked itself for a bit, then turned around and disappeared out of sight. This day just couldn't get any better -- or could it? We made a stop along the way to bird the last hours of daylight, and while Yellow-collared Macaws flew around and a pair of Crimson-crested Woodpeckers built a nest, we watched an Undulated Tinamou singing in the open just a few feet away from our group. What a way to end a day!

Porto Jofre is famous for Jaguars and guess what: we saw four more, including one killing a caiman, a female with a youngster and a huge male using a tree as a scratching post. In the process, we saw a myriad birds, including Blue-throated Piping-Guan, Cinereous-breasted Spinetail, Pied Plover and more terns and skimmers than we could count.

So no, I don’t get tired of doing the same trip over and over again. As a matter of fact, I can hardly wait to see what next year is going to be like!

Until we meet again,

-- Marcelo

KEYS FOR THIS LIST
One of the following keys may be shown in brackets for individual species as appropriate: * = heard only, I = introduced, E = endemic, N = nesting, a = austral migrant, b = boreal migrant

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Totals for the tour: 470 bird taxa and 20 mammal taxa