Pallid Spinetail - a Brazilian endemic!
Southern Tropical Pewee
Golden-chevroned Tanager - A Brazilian endemic but quite common in the southeast.
Rufous-margined Antwren - another horrible capture, but at least I got the rufous wing in the shot.
Black-billed Scythebill
Forrest photography is tough!
Spot-breasted Antvireo with a Cicada. This species is another almost endemic of the southeast but it does cross over into Paraguay.
Boat-billed Flycatcher
Atlantic Plain-Xenops
White-shouldered Fire-eye! Yet another southeast specialty that is almost endemic but crosses over into you guessed it, Paraguay.
We said our goodbyes to the National Park and headed to a gallery forrest that was surrounded by palm plantations.
Wied's Tyrant-Manakin!! A very range restricted Brazilian endemic. This was our main target bird in this spot.
Narrow-billed Antwren - this one was the cherry on top - another very range restricted endemic that we heard earlier in the trip but now we were able to see it. Almost looks like a pale headed House Wren.
Wied's Tyrant-Manakin
On the way out in a farm field, I noticed some whistling herons and alerted the driver and guide.
Whistling Heron
White Monjita - staying far away from humans as they do.
Brazilian Teal
In the early afternoon, we headed up an extremely hot and exposed ridge line in a place called Urucu. The dirt road was muddy from a recent downpour so we decided to walk up. I think I lost a gallon of sweat.
Cliff Flycatcher
Swallow-tailed Cotinga!! This was a young one or female
A male Swallow-tailed Cotinga.
Buffy-fronted Seedeater!! This was one of the main target birds. It is fairly rare and classified as Vulnerable per the IUCN. It prefers native bamboo forests which can make it hard to see as it tends to stay hidden deep in the bamboo. Not an endemic but almost.
Planalto Tyrannulet
Pin-tailed Manakin! We saw several of these but always females.. This is an endemic to the Atlantic forests of Brazil.
Sombre Hummingbird
Bahia Tyrannulet!! At the time we were really excited to see this endemic target bird, as we were led to believe this was the best place for it. However, we ended up seeing several more later in the trip. Nevertheless a very good bird with less than 3000 adult birds estimated to be alive on the planet.
Azure-shouldered Tanager - Looks a lot like a Sayaca but there are subtle differences including a larger bill and bluer wing. This is another southeast Brazilian endemic. We saw many more of these later.
We headed down from the mountain road and set up for our final bird of the day. The final spot was a marsh off the side of a country road which we walked into as it was getting dark. Giant Snipes were doing their crepuscular displays all around us and our guide finally got one to freeze in a spotlight.
Giant Snipe!!! Hard to see from this photo, but it is huge! Football sized.
The light didn't seem to bother it as it started to forage. What a day!
