On the first full day in Chapada, we headed to Estrada da Caixa d'Água which roughly translates to Water Tank Rd, presumably because there is a water tank somewhere on this dusty road in the middle of the dry scrub forest we began our search in. Since it gets very hot during the day, it makes sense to hit the exposed hot areas first.
Plain-crested Elaenia - not much to say about this one other than its plain... Its lack of definitive features is what makes it identifiable, not to mention the call which I suppose the guide was able to distinguish.
White-rumped Tanager - the white rump is not the first feature I would point to but I suppose tanagers are generally so colorful that much like the Elaenia, the best way to differentiate them is to point out the features that are not colorful or remarkable.
The White-banded Tanager used to be called the Shrike-like Tanager which in my opinion was a much better name.
Picazuro Pigeon
Chapada Flycatcher - note the fairly thick white tips to the tail.
White-eared Puffbirds
Plumbeous Seedeater - female.
Suiriri Flycatcher - this one looks very similar to the Chapada Flycatcher but has a different call and also behaves differently.
Also, the tail tip has less of a white terminal band.
White-eyed Parakeets were constantly flying by but finding one perched was tough.
Suiriri Flycatcher with almost no white on the tail tips. The Chapada has a thicker white tip to the tail.
Plumbeous Seedeater
Plain-crested Elaenia
Plumbeous Seedeater
Glittering-bellied Emerald - there are two glittering emerald type hummingbirds. The Glittering-bellied female has black mask.
Our next stop was in the actual park boundaries for Chapada dos Guimarães at the famous Veu da Noiva Waterfall.
As usual, I neglected to take scenery pics, but this photo from the internet is pretty much exactly what we saw. An amazing place I would like to explore more.
Great Dusky Swifts were feeding in great numbers over the gorge. We even saw some of them roosting behind the waterfall but that was too far to get decent pics.
Red-and-green Macaws were flying back and forth across the gorge making an amazing scene.
Purple-throated Euphonia - the trees just below the overlook for the waterfall were super birdy.
Sayaca Tanager
Blue Dacnis
Yellow-bellied Elaenia - this elaenia had white feathers at the base of the crest which is a good field mark for a couple of the Elaenias but this one was the most likely for the area.
Red-and-green Macaws
Glittering-bellied Emerald
Purple-throated Euphonia
Brown-crested Flycatcher
Cliff Flycatchers were hanging to the side of the gorge but I struggled with the light. I ended up getting much better photos later.
Yellow-bellied Elaenia
The guide had to pretty much pry us away from the gorge so we could get our next targets. I would have been happy to stay in that spot all day.
The next stop was back to Vale da Bencão where we had the Streamcreeper the day before. We went to try and get better looks at the creeper because some of the group had not seen it, but we ended up getting better looks at other species.
This Brown Jacamar was fairly far off but sat motionless for a long time and allowed good scope views.
Same for this Amethyst Woodstar.
This Swallow Tanager was the star of the show.
What a beauty!
The second half of the day was spent at the Pousada and then in a gallery forrest nearby. I will save that for the next post.
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