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Seeing the rare, endemic Red-tailed Parrot so well -- and so close -- was a real highlight of the tour. Photo by participant Chuck Holliday.

Southeast Brazil has always been has always been one of our most popular destinations, as the area holds the highest number of endemics (more than 160!) and the food, scenery and Brazilian hospitality make it a very pleasant tour. Over the course of the years, the tour has been constantly changing and adapting, due to new information that we get from our vast network of Brazilian contacts and to the possibility of visiting new areas as the infrastructure develops. This year, we ran only the second part of our long-running tour pair (plus an extension), but the main tour benefited from a lot of minor tweaks and perks. We started things in Sao Paulo and drove to Intervales, where our local guides have starting feeding a few key birds, such as Red-and-White Crake and Spot-winged Wood-Quail, granting us excellent looks at birds that would normally have been poorly seen or heard-only -- a nice way to complement the already fabulous birding experience at Intervales. We had also hoped for good news regarding the construction of the road we planned to use to go to the coast, but instead were told that the construction was finished but the road was not yet open to the public. This meant that we would have to drive an additional four hours on a very busy road with no birding stops, so we contacted a few friends and ended up getting a special permit to travel on the road before it was officially opened to the public -- a rare treat which we enjoyed as we drove through miles and miles of pristine forest with no traffic, birding along the way! We picked up species like Buff-bellied Puffbird (thanks Martha!), Streak-capped Antwren, an undescribed species of tapaculo, Pale-browed Treehunter, and other goodies, enjoying the scenery as we came down from the mountains to the coast. We spent one night there, and in addition to enjoying great seafood and scenery, we saw the endangered Red-tailed Parrot and the rare Black-backed Tanager, as well as Restinga Tyrannulet, before heading out to Curitiba. The drive to Curitiba would have been terrible (as one of the lanes was closed, and the traffic jam extended for miles and miles), but a friend had tipped us off to a new birding area, so instead of wasting the better part of the day in stuck inside our vans, we went there instead, and got great looks at Black-billed Scythebill, Olive-green Tanager, and Violaceous Euphonia. We'll certainly be coming back for more next year!

In Curitiba, we met some friends from the university and birded several nearby areas, including a reserve recently established to preserve the habitat of the newly-described Parana Antwren, which we saw extremely well, along with the recently split East Brazilian Chachalaca, and Many-colored Rush Tyrant. Our usual spots did not fail us, and we accumulated great looks at Canebrake Groundcreeper, Sickle-winged Nightjar, and many others. The last change to the tour is that we've altered the Itinerary -- instead of flying to Rio Grande do Sul, we kept our trusty drivers for a few more days and continued southward by land, picking up all sorts of great birds with the help of a friend who showed us some really rare species, including the newly-described Tropeiro Seedeater, Bearded Tachuri, Freckle-breasted Thornbird, and even the elusive Giant Snipe. Once we reached the town of Sao Francisco de Paula, we had great looks at Speckle-breasted Antpitta, Blue-bellied and Red-spectacled parrots and Swallow-tailed Cotinga.

We finished the main tour with one last Brazilian barbecue extravaganza, but a few of us continued on to Iguazu for a grand finale -- our extension, which visits both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides of Iguazu Falls. In Argentina, we were once again treated to an early admission to the Devil’s Throat, and were once again able to enjoy good looks at Black-fronted Piping-Guan -- as well as enjoy the falls -- before the herds of tourists invaded the park. In Brazil, our hotel was just a few steps away from the falls, granting us privileged access to the falls and to birding spots that produced great looks at Creamy-bellied Gnatcatcher, Southern Bristle-Tyrant, and Russet-winged Spadebill.

This was another great year in Southeast Brazil, clearly showing why it's such a popular tour. I can’t wait to see what new and exciting opportunities will present themselves on next year’s tour! Thanks for joining us.

-- Marcelo

* Note: This triplist covers both the main tour and the extension. A notation next to the bird's name indicates whether it was recorded on the main tour (M) or the extension (E). If a species was seen on one part of the tour and only heard on the other, I have noted that.

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: 404 bird taxa and 12 mammal taxa