Brazil Day 8 (16Aug2022) - Transpantaneira

The drive from Chapada to our next stop at Aymara Lodge in the heart of the Pantanal was uneventful if not boring. We finally got to do some sporadic birding once we got onto the famous Transpantaneira which is the dirt road that goes into the heart of the Pantanal.  Here is the Wiki entry for it:

"The Transpantaneira, also known as MT-060, is a road that crosses the pantanal, in the state of Mato Grosso in Brazil. The road is a link between the city of Poconé and the town of Porto Jofre. It's 147 km long and crosses no less than 122 wooden bridges. The road provides opportunity for wild life watching, especially in dry season."

In the above pic you can see the Transpantaneira starts where the road turns orange after the city of Pocone.

As usual, I neglected to take the obligatory pic of the entrance but that's ok because its been done a million times by other people so I was able to pull this from the web (not my pic):

We birded several roadside spots right after this sign and it was glorious.

Rusty-margined Flycatcher

Ringed Kingfisher

Snail Kites were everywhere but oddly I didn't come away with any exceptional shots.

Snail Kite

Wattled Jacana

Look at those toes!!

Striated Heron

Common Tody-Flycatcher

Pale-vented Pigeons are shy and difficult to photograph close up.

Snail Kite

Large-billed Tern in the distance.

Amazon Kingfisher

Juvenile Wattled Jacanas almost look like Sungrebes with long legs.

Rufescent Tiger-Heron juvenile.

Unicolored Blackbird female.  The males are truly unicolored or no-colored if you consider black the lack of color.  

White-winged Swallow

Gray-breasted Martin

Pantanal Caiman

White-headed Marsh Tyrant

Unicolored Blackbird male.

Chestnut-bellied Seed Finch - there were so many birds popping up that I can't be sure we all saw the same birds.  This species wasn't on the list that Sherry shared so I have to assume I was the only one that saw it even though I was standing next to everyone else.  Or maybe they just missed it on the list.

Yellow-browed Tyrant

Greater Thornbird - a large version of a spinetail with a yellow eye.

Swainson's Flycatcher - this was called out by the guide but beware, Myiarchus Flycatchers are notoriously difficult to ID in this part of the world.  Perhaps the guide heard the whistle call.  Certainly it had cold coloring and lack of rufous in the tail and wings and the bill seemed dark but with some lighter areas in the bill base.

Grassland Yellow-Finch - another hard to ID bird considering the very similar female Saffron Finch.

Short-crested Flycatcher - very similar to above Swainson's but a lack of lighter bill base.

Cocoi Heron - in South America, they don't have Great Blues but they have Cocois.

Blue-gray Saltator

When we arrived at Aymara Lodge, it was already dark and no one wanted to go night birding. I was somewhat tired so I capitulated and after a delicious meal I went to bed.  I do regret it now because we ended up never making a concerted effort for night birds not to mention Tapirs which are more active at night.  If you do go to Aymara, insist on trying for some of the nocturnal species.  The Rockjumper tour that went after us got some great pics of some owls and Tapirs at night.

Brazil Day 8 (16Aug2022) - Chapada dos Guimarães last day

Our second full day started out in the same area as our first, as we were still trying to bag Sherry's wishlist bird the Collared Crescentchest and also clean up some other scrub forest denizens.  This time I remembered to take a landscape photo with my iPhone.  Check out this endless dirt road leading through the scrub.  Looks like something out of the Australian outback.

Red-crested Finch was the first bird of the day.

Curl-crested Jays were a nice pickup.

Lesser Elaenia - somewhat unremarkable and very similar to other Elaenias.

Horned Sungem - we continued our streak of female type hummers.

White-banded Tanager

Blue-black Grassquit

Rusty-backed Antwren

Black-faced Tanager

White-eyed Parakeet

Barred Antshrike

We then had a nice flock that passed through consisting of a couple tanagers that probably were just passing through on migration.

Burnished-buff Tanager 

Cinnamon Tanager

Black-faced Tanager

This Rufous-winged Antshrike was a beauty!

We tried hard for the Crescentchest but failed miserably.  We had to move on... Next stop was atop a windy plateau to look for the eye-popping Blue Finch.

This Scaled Pigeon was perched in a tree in the distance but I was pleased how decent the pics came out despite being heavily cropped.

It took a long time to find the finch but it eventually popped out on a post for us..

Blue Finch

We moved a little down the road to try for a couple more specialty birds and visited the geographic center of South America.

The scenery was gorgeous here, looking down into the Pantanal from the high plateau of Chapada.

Crested Black-Tyrant

A two for one shot of a Cliff Flycatcher and a Southern Rough-winged Swallow.

Cliff Flycatcher

Gretchen and I standing on the center of South America.

The jaguars were calling us to our next destination so we went back to the Pousada to clean up and check out.  I managed to step away and get some more yard birds.

Variable Oriole

Helmeted Manakin in the Pousada back yard!  

I had a couple more items to pack and while I was doing it, Gretchen crushed one of my wishlist birds right at the Pousada Feeder, the Saffron-billed Sparrow.  Here is a pic from eBird so you can see what I missed.  It still hurts...

They had to tear me away from the Pousada so we could begin our southward move down the Transpantaneira, the dirt road that leads into the heart of the Pantanal.