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This was our first run of this tour, which is based entirely at the Ecolodge da Barra, a floating hotel on the far upper Tapajos River, which is a major, south-bank tributary of the Amazon. I had visited the Ecolodge in October, 2014, when I guided a VIP cohort of WWF personnel to several places in the Brazilian Amazon (not a FG trip). I was mightily impressed with the Ecolodge as an amazingly comfortable place to stay in a little-known sector of the Amazon basin, and immediately started planning a 2017 tour there. The owners were very anxious to get birding tourism going (it is 100% sport fishing at the moment), and told me they would be able to install a tower, open lots of terra firme trails, etc., over the next couple of years.

The Ecolodge invited me to go out there in 2015 and 2016 to select a tower location and spots for cutting loop trails. However, by tour-time this year, they did not get a tower built, and the trail system in terra firme forest was not extensive enough to support nine days of birding. So, it leaves much to be desired, some of which can be remedied fairly easily (mainly, opening more and longer trails). Access to seasonally flooded forest and some campinas is, however, very good. They also managed to get us permission to bird on the right bank of the Tapajos, which is all Munduruku Indigenous Territory, generally off-limits to outsiders. Our day over there, with two young Munduruku guides, was really fun and productive for us and for them – I have high hopes of being able to bird another day or two with them in the future.

After a leisurely and very well appointed breakfast at our hotel in Manaus, we made our way to the nearby municipal airport and lifted off on a beautiful, clear morning. Our charter plane was a brand-new Cessna Gran Caravan, the perfect plane for a group of 5-9, the same planes we use for the Rio Roosevelt tour. It has big windows which I always make sure are freshly cleaned, and the wings up over the windows, so all seats are good ones! It also takes a lot of weight, so limits are much more reasonable than on smaller planes. As we left Manaus behind, it was fabulous to look down on the Amazon River, to see the “meeting of the waters”, where the Solimoes (which is the main channel of the Amazon upriver of its confluence with the Rio Negro), and the Rio Negro join to form the Amazonas, which courses east to the Atlantic Ocean. About halfway into the two-hour flight to the village of Barra de Sao Manoel, clouds built up and, by the time we landed, skies were dark and rainy! This made for a dramatic landscape as we swung around to give everyone an overview of the region, and an “exhilarating” landing on the all-dirt (= mud) airstrip, which the pilots flared out with a round of laughter from all. You know, that delicious flavor of laughter that comes with great relief.

We took the truck down to the river, transferred our luggage and ourselves to a speedboat, and 10 minutes later, we were at the Ecolodge. Rain continued through lunch and early afternoon, then let up enough to allow some birding on the island to which the Ecolodge is anchored. It was drippy and dreary in there, but we saw a number of birds well, including the distinctive huberi subspecies of Blackish-gray Antshrike, endemic to the Tapajos. We also found a nest with two eggs of Band-tailed Manakin (the first I’d ever seen!), so this was a fine start to the birding.

We had eight more full days (wow!). Every day started with an early breakfast (04:30 to 05:30) followed by a boat trip of 3 to 60 minutes to reach our birding destination for the morning, with return to the Ecolodge for lunch and 1.5-2 hours of rest, before another birding outing closer to the lodge and return for happy hour and dinner. All drinks were included, even liquor and wine, and the big, communal drink fridges were always stocked and open to help yourself whenever you wanted, plus every room has a mini-fridge that you can stock with whatever you like. The daily rhythm was quite relaxing, and we were done with dinner and off to bed most evenings before 8, allowing for 8+ hours of sleep almost every night. Meals were always on-time and delicious, often featuring three main dishes (always at least one fresh fish) and various sides and salads, with very little repetition through our stay. The rooms are spacious, with good beds and bathrooms. The showers at the Ecolodge just might be the best showers I have ever experienced – perfect, with incredible water volume and pressure, and easy temp control. The staff did laundry every day, returning clothes to the proper rooms the same afternoon, most days, or definitely by the next morning. We had the Ecolodge to ourselves for four days, then had to share with four semi-rowdy Brazilian fishermen for three days, then five more relaxed guys the last couple of days. It was all good.

Unfortunately, the overcast, rainy weather we encountered on arrival hung in for several more days, as it turned out to be a late austral cold front. This made for comfortable temperatures, but birding was slower than usual (very quiet forests). We could, however, thank the frontal conditions for some super-exciting migrant viewing! There were pushes of Snail Kites on 1-4 October involving several hundreds of birds. Movements of Snail Kite in South America are poorly understood, but I’ve seen enough of it that I’m pretty sure they are migrating from marsh/savanna regions of northern South America (llanos, etc.) south to the pantanal and pampas in October, timing arrival to coincide with the start of the rainy season down there. The Tapajos seems to be a migration corridor, and I’ve seen flocks moving over the Teles Pires and Cristalino in Mato Grosso, too. I made some pretty fabulous video of a couple of big flocks on the tour, birds put down by the front. There were also hundreds of Purple Martins huddled up one morning, and lots of White-collared Swifts and at least 6 Great Dusky Swifts (!) overhead that day. Also on the migration subject, there were good numbers of Common Nighthawks feeding at dusk on a couple of days, some showing primary molt. I wish we’d been able to get out on the rivers at dusk more often, to gain an idea of how many birds may have been around, and whether they were still moving, or seemed to be settled in the for the winter. The wintering grounds of the (many!) subspecies of Common Nighthawk are remarkably poorly known (the books will tell you only "South America"). I also thought there may have been some Lessers in with them (which would not be North American birds, I’m sure), and there were quite a few Sand-colored Nighthawks around as well. Exciting stuff!

Highlights were a leisurely study, on three different perches, of an adult, dark-morph Crested Eagle, a close walk-by of a Razor-billed Curassow, almost daily Amazonian Umbrellabirds (no, not because of the rain hahaha), Fiery-capped, Snow-capped, Flame-crowned, and Band-tailed manakins, cooperative Pheasant Cuckoo and Pavonine Quetzal, Natterer’s Striolated-Puffbird (not officially split yet, but hang on for it), Rufous-necked Puffbird 2x, five Celeus woodpeckers, perched Bald Parrot, lots of Kawall’s Parrots, seeing two undescribed species of antbirds (a “Yellow-browed” and a “Pygmy”, both under active study), getting both Common and Xingu Scale-backed Antbirds (never done that on one tour; got Xingu on the right bank of the Tapajos), seeing the undescribed “Chestnut-belted” Gnateater really well, Curve-billed Scythebill, Slender-billed Xenops, a remarkably low, close Zimmer’s Tody-Tyrant, and a very cooperative Musician Wren. One morning, I spotted some distant Dark-winged Trumpeters before they saw us (virtually never happens) and got folks into position to call them up; the birds called back loudly but refused to come in close enough to be seen by the birders. I was disappointed to not be able to do much nightbirding this trip (weather problems), especially because we had a perfect moon and a small, generally gung-ho group. So, no Nocturnal Curassow ☹ but there's always "next time"! Another bummer was arriving at the trailhead into the huge area of bamboo I had worked in 2016 scouting to find that a wide road had been put in there! It really blew me away, a very unwelcome sign of outside encroachment. We had a too-rainy morning there this year (yet still had several good birds, just not the bamboo specialties), so perhaps I'll give it one more chance, next year.

Mammals sightings were headlined by multiple encounters with Common Woolly Monkeys and White-bellied Spiders, one group of White-nosed Bearded Sakis, a sighting of “Dusky” Titi Monkey on the left bank of the Tapajos, Brown Capuchins, and Bare-eared Squirrel Monkeys. We also saw Giant Otter very nicely!

Thank you all for adventuring with me to bird the remote upper Tapajos River. We had a great time, and I tremendously look forward to birding with all of you again, whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Grandes abraços para todos, Bret

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: 342 bird taxa and 11 mammal taxa