This beautiful Brazilian endemic resides in southeast Brazil but does extend up into Bahia State in its most northern range. We saw this and others in the Mucuge area in Bahia State. It is not lonely, being in a genus with 27 other tanagers. It seemed to be doing well in this heavily degraded forest surrounded by farmland.
This species has highly disjunct populations north and south of the Amazon basin in South America. They inhabit anywhere with grasslands or pastureland which is in no shortage in South America. The males are yellow and unmarked and the females are brown and streaky with all kinds of variations in between for younger birds. I didn't get any really good photos of the "stripe" in the tail but it's a fairly inconspicuous white mark in the under tail. Both these photos were taken in the area near Mucuge in Bahia State, Brazil.
This Brazilian endemic has a fairly wide but thin range at higher elevations in Bahia and Minas Gerais States. It inhabits grassy land with rock outcroppings. This was exactly the habit of Chapada Diamantina where we saw our first ones. However, we got even better looks a couple days later in Mucuge in Bahia State. This is another one of those birds that looks like a sparrow, is in the Tanager family but has a name with Finch in it. There are only two birds in this genus with the other being the Great Pampa-finch which lives further to the south.
The White-bearded Manakin has a large range in South America including most of the upper half and also into southeast Brazil along the Atlantic Forest. We had them in a bunch of places including Barro Branco in Lençóis which was our home-base while visiting the Chapada Diamantina in Bahia State, Brazil. It was a little frustrating when we passed this species many times without devoting much time to it because it is widespread and the guides didn't want to waste time on it in favor of endemics. Of course the guides were right and I will undoubtedly get more chances to crush this species. This photo will do for now.
This large swift species is almost a Brazilian endemic but does cross over a bit into Paraguay and northeast Argentina. It looks somewhat similar to the White-collared Swift and many times both are in the same flock which makes ID tricky. The White-collared Swift has a more even looking white collar while the Biscutate's collar gets wider on the throat and if you can see it from the side, the two ends of the collar don't actually touch and are staggered in a corkscrew pattern. I have some poor photos showing this feature from this same bird, but this photo is much nicer. This photo was taken near Mucuge, Brazil.
This large nighthawk was truly awesome to watch as it strafed us at dusk while we looked for owls. It has a very wide range including Central and South America, but is pretty strictly crepuscular so difficult to see well. This one was curious with us and came very close over our heads but 99% of my photos didn't come out as it was almost dark and getting your cameras autofocus to work in that kind of light is tricky.
