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The rugged capstones of the Chapada Diamantina make inspiring backdrops for some of the most exciting birding on the Field Guides "Nowhere but Northeast Brazil" tour. [Photo copyright Bret Whitney]

The Field Guides 2015 Northeast Brazil tour went like a dream, barely a wrinkle along our 3-plus weeks of birding travels. We like it like that! Sure, there were a few rough moments along the way.... wait a minute, nooo, there actually weren't any hardships to speak of! Well, maybe that time we stopped for Magnum bars and they were out. That was pretty bad, I guess. And now that I think about it, where the heck were the Masked Ducks? Light rains meant few ponds available for them, but all we really wanted was ONE -- not too much to ask (usually)! This was the driest, or second-driest, tour we've ever done. Fortunately, December/early January rains had been good, so the land was generally green and birds singing, but we had hardly a drop of rain through the entire tour and extension, with just one big storm that didn't interrupt our birding at all.

If there were anything "major" to complain about, it would have to be that people have done such a thorough job of destroying native habitats that we had to drive hours and hours between remnant forests and desert scrub just to have a chance of seeing all of the many rare birds endemic to Northeast Brazil. To be sure, habitat loss cost us the Pinto's Spinetail this year -- just too much damage to our usual venues, the first time we've dipped on it since Field Guides started birding tourism in Northeast Brazil, in 1993. But darned few other birds escaped our bin's, and our group was an especially fun and congenial one.

Among so many highlights from the tour, mention of just a few must include the Lear's Macaws that showed up at exactly the right moment for us to see them really well; it had been an unusually dry season and the licuri palms were nearly devoid of the fruits the macaws largely depend on for food. Araripe Manakins, on the other hand, seemed eager to please, with handsome adult males posing for scope views and photos several times. And how about that Broad-tipped Hermit that came out of the dense brush to meet us face-to-face, then perched to eye us some more? – that bird provided surely the most amazing hummer performance of the 28 species we saw this year. That said, the glowing male Ruby Topaz on the Southern Bahia Extension was a mighty close second, but the hermit is endemic to the Northeast and much more difficult to see really well. Finding four, perhaps even five, Alagoas Antwrens was wonderful and bittersweet at the same time, as recent intensive search of all remaining habitat patches had documented only these few birds at Murici Reserve remaining alive, the very last members of their species. That morning at Murici produced another of our most exciting finds, as we enjoyed lengthy (in time and distance!) scope views of an adult White-collared Kite, one of the world's rarest raptors.

Classic Northeast Brazil endemics on the main tour route, such as Great Xenops, Red-shouldered Spinetail, Pectoral Antwren, Caatinga Antwren, Buff-breasted Tody-Tyrant, White-naped Jay, Seven-colored Tanager, Red-cowled Cardinal, and White-throated Seedeater were, as always, seen beautifully. We also thoroughly enjoyed several species that are often somewhat harder to find or see well, such as Pygmy Nightjar, Least Nighthawk, Golden-tailed Parrotlet and Gray-breasted Parakeet (pairs of both species perched low and close!), Scalloped Antbird, Orange-bellied Antwren, Willis's Antbird, Fringe-backed Fire-eye, Alagoas Tyrannulet, Ash-throated Casiornis, Black-headed Berryeater, Scarlet-throated Tanager, Copper Seedeater, and the rare Forbes's Blackbird. Birding the Chapada Diamantina region of interior Bahia was a perfect closer for the main tour. With inspiring landscape and backdrops all around us, fabulous birds like Sincora Antwren, Diamantina Tapaculo, Collared Crescentchest, Rufous-sided Pymgy-Tyrant, Gray-backed Tachuri, the stunning Hooded Visorbearer, the rare and local Brown Violetear (endemic form greenewalti), and Sao Francisco Sparrow all showed perfectly, one by one. Special accolades go to the roster of piculets on this trip, which typically racks up more of these tiny woodpeckers than any other tour! We saw, in order of appearance, Golden-spangled (endemic subspecies pernambucensis, proposed for recognition at the species level), Tawny, Ochraceous, Spotted, and Golden-spangled (nominate subspecies exilis, another endemic population proposed for recognition at the species level).

We wrapped up the main tour with a festive swing through old Salvador, one of the oldest cities in the Americas, and capital of Brazil for more than 200 years. I'll drop in a couple of video clips to give you a bit of the flavor of that fun evening!

For the first time, in 2015, we offered the southern Bahia section as a separate extension to the main, more northerly route. This is designed to introduce greater flexibility for participants who either don't want to or cannot be away for more than 2 ½ weeks to head home while others can opt to continue for an additional week of birding, much of which is distinctly tempered with the Atlantic Forest realm we bird on our Spectacular Southeast Brazil tours. Most folks did take the Southern Bahia Extension, and it proved to be super-productive, as expected. White-winged Potoo, Hook-billed Hermit, Slender Antbird, Rio de Janeiro Antbird, Narrow-billed Antwren, Bahia Antwren, Band-tailed Antwren, Striated Softtail, Bahia Spinetail, Eastern Striped Manakin, Bahia Tyrannulet, and Pink-legged Graveteiro all did their things for us, and we heartily applauded each fabulous performance. All of these are species we do not typically see on any other tour. We added to these an impressive haul of classic Southeast endemics, including Crescent-chested Puffbird, Black-billed Scythebill, Ringed and Yellow-throated woodpeckers (both represented in the Atlantic Forest by highly distinctive, endemic subspecies), Pin-tailed and Swallow-tailed manakins, Spot-backed Antshrike, Spot-breasted Antvireo, Scaled and White-bibbed antbirds, White-shouldered Fire-eye, White-winged Cotinga, Cinnamon-vented Piha, Brazilian and Gilt-edged tanagers, and a singing male Dubois's Seedeater (for what it's worth – probably just the pale end of a cline in Yellow-bellied Seedeater, but it is currently considered a separate species). Finally, a mega-highlight on the extension was having a Giant Snipe come in close to us, giving us perfect views for several minutes as it walked along, stopping to probe in the wet meadow grass, or preen, even singing in the spotlight! It was among the top vote-getters for best bird of the whole tour -- check out the video!

On the following list, I'll include comments on a small selection of the above and other species (X means seen/heard only on the extension), and drop in a number of tour photos and video clips for our 2015 group to relive exciting times, and to help folks who are thinking about taking the Northeast Brazil tour gain a good, representative view of what to expect. I do highly recommend taking the **Southern Bahia Extension** if you possibly can – it's super-worthwhile! At the time of this writing (mid-March 2015), we still have several openings on both the main tour and the extension ;-)

Marcelo and I send a hearty obrigado com abraços to all of our 2015 tour friends; we had a great time, let's do it again in a different venue of big, beautiful Brazil!

--Bretche

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

Among notable other critters were South American Coati (one DOR and another in southern Ceara state); Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins from the ferry in Baia Todos os Santos near Salvador; a Nine-banded Armadillo seen on the extension, big Green Iguanas here and there, a few smallish caiman in a backwater of the Rio Sao Feancisco near Petrolina, and a fantastic turtle there as well (I'll try to get friends at the Univ. Sao Paulo to ID it), several enormous Tupinambis tegu lizards (mostly on the extension), and quite a few nice butterflies along the way, but especially on the extension.

Totals for the tour: 460 bird taxa and 7 mammal taxa