www.thefilemyrs.com > Birding > Brazil 2005 > Trip Report

Trip Report by Martin Selzer

02-Dec-05 – Jane and Bob headed to the Philadelphia International Airport on their own and Bert began the pick up run at the Murphy’s at 15:45. He got me five minutes later and we then head to Lynn’s before heading to the airport. We parked the car at Ampco and were through security and all met at the gate at 17:45. Some of us grabbed a bite to eat; while others ate food they had brought with them. At 20:15 (45 minutes late), we took off. We arrived in Miami at 22:30, made a dash for our flight to Rio and took off at 23:30 we arrived in Rio at 10:45 in the morning of 03-Dec-05.

03-Dec-05 – We disembarked the plane, proceeded through customs and went to the luggage carousel where we waited, and waited and waited for our bags to come. While we were not the last people to get our bags, we did not have a lot of company with us when they did arrive. In fact, Bill and Naomi were missing one of their bags. The rest of us proceeded to meet our driver while Bill and Naomi reported their lost bag and we were headed to Serra dos Tucanos (here to known as SDT) at 12:45. We had to navigate around Rio’s harbor and on the way began to bird. We saw lots of magnificent frigatebirds, great egrets, turkey and black vultures. We also had a few kelp gulls at 60 km/hr. Once we got out of the city and into the countryside, we started to get fork-tailed flycatchers, tropical kingbirds, ruddy ground doves and great kiskadees on the power lines.

A few raptors were spotted and at least two savanna hawks were identified. In the agricultural fields, we had more ruddy ground doves, smooth-billed anis and southern lapwings. We arrived at SDT around 13:15, were shown to our rooms (which were very pleasant and comfortable) and started birding from the veranda. We were like kids in a candy store as the hummingbird feeders and bunches of bananas had birds all over them. In no particular order, we were calling out what we were seeing: saw-billed hummingbirds, black jacobins, swallow-tailed hummingbirds, palm tanagers, green-headed tanagers, ruby-crowned tanagers, violaceous euphonias, and golden-chevroned tanagers. Andy had just invited us into the dining room for a brief orientation talk prior to lunch when a female spot-billed toucanet made an appearance. That placed our orientation talk on hold. We eventually made it into lunch that was the first of many delicious buffet meals we were to enjoy. Of course, a group of birders eating a meal with binoculars close at hand was interrupted by violaceous woodcreeper on the palms towards the front of the house and plain parakeet on the bananas.

After lunch, we settled back in onto the veranda where we enjoy more of the same species we had observed before lunch. Now we had a pair of sot-billed toucanets and the male is just a spectacular bird. We had our first Brazilian tanager of the trip and the male just gleams a brilliant, velvety red (even in the rain, more on that to come). Great kiskadees and banaquits were joining the feeding fray, as were violet-crowned woodnymph, sayaca tanagers, rufous-bellied and creamy-bellied thrushes. Two red-necked tanagers made brief appearances, as did a white-barred piculet. A juvenile rufous-collared sparrow showed up on the lawn and was subject to some debate until Andy showed up to settle the dispute.

By now, some of us were getting a bit antsy so we started to walk around the grounds. By the pool, there was a small flock of saffron finches feeding in the grass and a slightly larger flock of double-collared seedeaters in the taller vegetation. We also had side-by-side comparison of rusty-margined flycatcher with great kiskadee along with a few tropical kingbirds. The group continued to go its separate way and Lynn and I had two yellow-lored tody-flycatchers in the trees by the front door. Bob walked out onto his second floor room’s balcony just then and got Jane so they both had the tody-flycatchers. Lynn and I also had grey-hooded attila by the gate closest to the lodge. Around 17:30, we all had returned to our rooms to continue settling in and get ready for dinner. The routine at SDT in breakfast at 6:30, lunch is either a picnic on the all day excursions or 13:00 back at the lodge and dinner is at 19:00. After eating our fill, we went over out checklist.

While at dinner, we invited John and Luit to join us on our field trip the next day. They are professional ornithologists who specialize in bird strikes and managing this problem. They had been attending a conference in Rio and were then going to spend 3 days at SDT birding. Little did they know that they would be invited and welcomed into our little group. They were most appreciative of the offer and nice and friendly gentlemen.

04-Dec-05 – Breakfast was at 6:30 and we departed on the three-toed jacamar excursion. Today was a simply wonderful day with many stops on route and many birds wherever we stopped. We traveled 210 km in total today with a large portion along Duas Barras Road. All this was in preparation of our 15:00 date with the three-toed jacamars. At the end of the day when we did the checklist, Andy tallied 102 species seen or heard on this adventure. His all-time record for this excursion is 105 species so we did darn well!

As stated earlier it was just one brilliant birding stop after another, we even picked up three cattle tyrants during our stop for diesel fuel. Around 8:00, we turned onto Duas Barras Road and quickly made our first stop. Our routine along the road was to make a stop, bird for approximately 30 minutes, drive 5-10 minutes down the road, and then stop again to bird. We continued this until we arrived in the town of Duas Barras around 10:15 were we stopped for a coffee and pit stop. The stops began to blend together, so while one stop may have yielded streamer-tailed tyrant, campo flicker, and white woodpecker; another stop might have yielded green-backed becard, planalto tyrannulet and crane hawk; yet another stop yielded blue-winged macaw, dusky legged guan, green and ringed kingfisher, and black-capped donacobius. Also seen along the way into town were red-legged seriema, crested tyrant, rufous horneros, white-rumped swallows and blue and white swallows.

After we had a well-enjoyed coffee break, we hit some wetter areas that contained southern lapwings, wattled jacanas, both purple and common gallinules and Brazilian teal. Herons and egrets seen during day included great and cattle egrets; striated, capped and whistling herons. Raptors seen included gray-headed and plumbeous kites, white-tailed and savanna hawks, yellow-headed and southern caracaras. We also had black, turkey and lesser yellow-headed vultures. Overlooking one wet pasture area, we found a burrowing owl in a most unusual spot, perched a top a dead tree. From this overlook, we also saw, red-rumped cacique and Guira cuckoos. We had a flock of at least a dozen of these cuckoos and they were a big hit with everyone. Also found during this adventure were common and red-eyed thornbirds, long-tailed tyrants, white-eared puffbird, hooded siskins, and ochre-faced tody-flycatcher. We then enjoyed our picnic lunch along the roadside at 12:45. Lunch consisted of ham and cheese or tuna fish sandwiches, crisps, and biscuits. We had plenty to eat. We then continued on to the jacamar stop.

We had been fortunate that it had been dry the past few days so we could drive to the jacamars. We got out of the van and at precisely 15:00, as promised, Bill and Naomi found the first of several three-toed jacamars. This is truly one of the most prized endemics of the region. Here we also had a calling long-billed wren but it did not want to come out and show itself. In the jacamar area, we also had streaked flycatcher and scaled woodcreeper. At 15:30, we head back to SDT, arriving at the lodge at 18:00. We went at 18:45 for a pre-dinner checklist. Andy was using a newer version of his checklist, so the checklist ritual took on more of a challenge than it often does. We managed to get through it and then adjourned to the dining room for yet another fine meal. Kudos to Ron French for recommending SDT and kudos to Andy and Cristina for running such a nice place. Even though we had only been here for a day and a half, it was shaping up to be a wonderful first taste of birding in Brazil for most of us and an excellent return adventure for others.

05-Dec-05 – Breakfast was again at 6:30 with a 7:00 departure for the Bamboo Trail. This trail is a 15-20 minute drive from SDT so after grabbing drinks and nibbles for lunch we loaded up the van and headed out. We parked the car, got our sandwiches from Andy (today we would picnic at the “end” of the trail but had to carry our own lunches) and set up the trail. The round trip is about 8km and varies from a cobblestone driveway to a single file trail through the forest. Today was similar to yesterday in that we would walk until we encountered a good bird calling or a spot that Andy knew was prime habitat for a target species. In a little over an hour after parking the car, we still had not hit the trail part of our adventure but had mottled-cheeked tyrannulet, a female Brazilian ruby, a few white-throated hummingbirds, white-rimmed warbler and best of all a sharp-tailed streamcreeper. We had heard one fairly soon after starting the trail but he did not want to play. Therefore, we kept moving. This second streamcreeper, initially did not seem to want to come into the tape so we moved on but Bill, Naomi and Lynn lingered back and he did in fact come in. Fortunately, he stuck around so we all got fantastic looks at him. This was one of Bill’s nemesis birds even after all his trips to the tropics so it was nice to get one on my first try in the proper location.

For most if not all of the time on the trail, we had bearded bellbirds, bonging and we were able to see a few of them. We picked up three new tanager species for the trip: brassy-breasted, azure-winged and black-goggled. Along the was were a few sharp-billed treehunters, a rufous-capped spinetail, rufous gnateater, white-browed and buff-browed foliage-gleaners, white-shouldered fire-eye, gray-headed flycatcher and a star-throated antwren. Two of the best finds on this adventure were a white-bearded antshrike (a rare bird for SDT excursions) and a hooded berryeater. Because birding along this forest trails can be difficult not everyone sees all the birds when they first appear and sometimes it take a lot of juggling your place in the queue so that everyone gets a clean look. Sometimes it takes multiple attempts at a bird. The gnateater and the berryeater took some effort for everyone to see them and try as we might, not everyone got satisfactory looks at the fire-eye, flycatcher or antwren.

Besides the white-throated and Brazilian ruby, new hummingbirds for the trip were black-breasted plovercrest and scale-throated hermit. Besides winding through the forest, this trail has several minor and one major stream crossings. The minor ones came and went without incident. The major crossing was uneventful going out the trail but not so uneventful on the return trip. However, more on that later in the saga. We reached the end of the trail, which comes to a grassy knoll overlooking someone’s home. Here we had our picnic lunches from 13:00-13:30. While we ate, a few flycatchers entertained us including, variegate, great kiskadee and tropical kingbird. The walk back was without incident as we picked up a few on the more problematic species again such as the gnateater, some woodcreepers and foliage-gleaners.

Then we arrived back at the major creek crossing. Rock hopping going out the trail was not too bad as you stepped onto taller rocks before stepping down onto the far bank. On the return direction, you had to step up far enough onto the first rock so as not to slip, fall or loose momentum. Regrettably, I did not step far enough and had to make one of those split second decisions, try to regain my balance and possible fall into the creek or just accept defeat and walk through the water that was clearly deeper than my boot tops. So, I did not fall and only suffered wet feet and a bruised ego. Since I was the third person across and had made it the other direction without a problem, this caught everyone by surprise (i.e. no cameras were poised to capture this mistake for prosperity sake). Well, Jane saw my misadventure and asked for a guiding hand across, so Andy stood on the top rock with Bob providing counterbalance from the far bank. She still managed to loose her balance slightly and one foot went into the creek. Now it was Naomi’s turn and with her bad knees, she was not going to have any part of this rock hopping crap so she defiantly resigned herself to get her feet wet and strode into the creek. She was doing fine until she was about to step up onto the near bank when she fell flat on her backside. Most fortunately, she did not hurt herself and we had a good laugh at Jane’s, Naomi’s and my misfortune. I may have started the trend but we all agreed Naomi perfected it. We were back at the van at 16:10, back to SDT within 20 minutes to clean up, enjoy a cocktail or two and sit on the veranda enjoying the scenery until dinner.

06-Dec-05 – Today we were scheduled to bird the Cedae Trail. This is one of the half-day excursions offered by SDT. We would then have the rest of the day to enjoy the trails at the lodge or just sitting on the veranda. Breakfast as usual was at 6:30 and a very enjoyable spread of bread, yogurt, cereal, juice, tea and coffee and fresh fruit (pineapple, mango and melon). I showed up at 6:25 and as is the norm with this group, they are incredibly prompt, to the point of being habitually 5-10 minutes early. We have come to affectionately call this operating on “Bert Time”. Even John and Luit learned to operate on Bert Time.

From there we loaded up the van and headed to the trail head a mere 10 minutes from SDT. We made a quick roadside stop for cliff flycatchers that use the cliff side to nest and perch in the early morning on the power wires. Not everyone had gotten to see them the day before and this was to be the first of many clean-up species we had for many people in the group who did not see things well enough the previous days. Andy had told us that the Cedae trail was a lot of up and down, suggesting it was somewhat rolling in nature. What he meant and what we quickly learned that is was a lot of down before we would start back up it. Clean-up birds included plain antvireo, star-throated antwren, red-necked tanager, blue manakin, grey-headed attila, grey-headed flycatcher, white-shouldered fire-eye and white-throated spadebill. New birds for the trip included black-capped foliage gleaner (another one was later seen on the trails at SDT), spot-breasted antvireo, rufous-thighed kite (on a nest with chicks), fly-by channel-billed toucans, Oustalet’s tyrannulet, black-throated grosbeak, black-tailed tityra and red-crowned ant-tanager. We also added three new tanagers to the trip list: rufous-headed, olive-green and yellow-backed.

We made it to the end of the trail at 10:15 and spent 15 minutes there before heading up the trail. We picked up birds coming and going although it was quieter going up than coming back. We were back to SDT by noon, did a checklist before lunch because John and Luit would be heading home later in the afternoon and enjoyed lunch. Today, while eating we were interrupted by a pair of white-tailed trogons and a squirrel cuckoo. We then ended up going our separate ways on the trails taking this opportunity to take photographs, read, take a swim or just kick back. Around 16:00, the car came to take John and Luit to the airport and we all said goodbye to our new friends. Around 17:00, it started to rain and continued to do so for more or less the next 24 hours. Bert worked on his computer, Lynn read, I wrote up my notes and who knows what the others did.

07-Dec-05 – Today we were back into our normal morning routine and it was still pouring down rain. We were supposed to go on the Restinga Antwren/Coastal Excursion; however, Andy came into the dining room and informed us that the forecast was for all day rain and that it made little or now sense to make the trip. In fact, I wrote this while it rained and entered this entire report during the day. This is the risk one takes for coming to the rain forest in the rainy season. Heck, one takes this risk even in the dry season. We would reconsider our options after lunch if it stopped raining, so we all just loafed around the lodge. We kept an eye on the sky and the feeders and did manage to get a male Brazilian ruby, young male amethyst woodstar and finally notice sombre hummingbirds (at least I finally noticed them). The rain stopped around 17:00 and a few of us walked the trails picking up crested becard, masked yellowthroat and ferruginous antbird.

This down time allows me to tell the story of Fluffy and Co. These are the two guard dogs for the lodge that are released at night. As it often, the case in a lodge like this, there is a locked gate at the main entrance but safety is still a concern. Therefore at night, Fluffy and Co. get turned loose, the main house gets locked up and Bert whose room opened to the outside, was advised to lock his door from the inside as Fluffy (a large rottweiler who has learned to open unlocked doors) and Co (a large German Sheppard) prowl the grounds. Bert’s room is in a wing adjacent to the main house and he needs to wait until he gets an all clear knock on his door each morning before venturing out. That or hope he guesses the Portuguese word for sit on his first attempt. Anyway this became another in a series of running jokes we have as a group.

08-Dec-05 – Today we would go on the Restinga Antwren/Coastal Excursion. Breakfast and departure were as normal. Once again, we had a meal interrupted by a very good bird. In this case, it was a white-throated woodcreeper. Cleaning that miss up for some people.

After driving for about 90 minutes, we stop to stretch our legs and look for plain-breast ground doves. We found a pair within a few minutes and were back on our way. The restinga is a rare and disappearing habitat of sandy soil, cactus and related vegetation. We had three main targets here, sooretama northern antshrike, Hangnest tody-flycatcher and the restinga antwren. We also had some coastal habitat and saltpans to scan for waders. Our first stop at the coast was good for Brazilian (Neotropical) cormorant, kelp gull and three white woodpeckers. Two minutes down the road we made our first scan of the saltpans and quickly started adding shorebirds to the trip list: collared plover, black-bellied plover, greater and lesser yellowlegs, ruddy turnstone, sanderling, and spotted sandpiper. Here we also had a “mottled” little blue heron, burrowing owl, white-cheeked pintail and grassland sparrow. These seemed somewhat reminiscent in habitat and appearance to savannah sparrows.

Our first stop in some of the remnant restinga lasted about 30 minutes and we nailed the Hangnest today-flycatcher and antshike but dipped on the antwren. Here we also had purple-throated euphonia and a fly-by roadside hawk. The next piece of restinga was at the ocean’s edge. Over the breaking waves, we had several brown boobies, more kelp gulls and some distant sandwich terns. Here we walked in a bit and finally found a restinga antwren that wanted to play. It took several attempts with the tape but we eventually all got wonderful looks and this rare and endangered endemic species. Restinga habitat was never very vast and being near the ocean it is being cleared for beachside second homes.

We walked out to the backside of the saltpans and had a single lesser yellow-headed vulture, southern caracara, and more waders including least sandpipers. We also had white-browed blackbirds, two whistling herons, two more burrowing owls and a very distant roseate spoonbill. While scanning the waders two tropical parulas popped up in the nearby vegetation. They were two of the brightest tropical parulas I had even seen. From this vantage point, we saw some distant yellowish pipits so we walked towards them and eventually got close looks at these birds too. On the way back to the van, a tropical mockingbird drew our attention.

Lunch was at a local restaurant in the town of Praia Seca (Dry Beach). It was a barbeque spread of chicken, sausage, beef and pork chops along with rice, chips and manioc. This was not exactly a heart friendly meal but it tasted great. We then drove back to the lodge in hopes of walking the trails but the rain had started up again so we chose to stay dry and avoid slipping on the muddy trails. Most of us had a decent nap in the van on the return trip. We still had the feeders to watch and had the usual suspects of hummingbirds including the woodstar and male Brazilian ruby showing off again, all the usual tanagers, a pair of plain parakeets and the spot-billed toucanets. If the rain lets up, we will try the trails.

09-Dec-05 – It was the usual routine for breakfast except that today there were no new birds while we ate. The usual hummingbirds and tanagers were at the feeders at the veranda. We set off for Serra dos Orgaos National Park a little after 7:00. After about 30 minutes, we came to a small fish hatchery and scanned about for the ponds to see what was there. We were able to find a family group of least grebes, several common moorhens, a striated heron, wattled jacanas, a yellow-chinned spinetail and a band-tailed hornero.

We arrived at the entrance to the lower section of the park at approximately 8:15. Andy paid our entrance fee and we walked the lower trail from 8:30 to 10:45. Almost immediately after getting out of the van, we ran into our best group of birds for the day. It was a mixed flock of tanagers, foliage-gleaners and other birds of the Atlantic rain forest. The flock contained flame-crested tanagers. We all agreed that these we gorgeous birds much more sticking than the somewhat similar ruby-capped tanagers we have been seeing at the feeders at the lodge. There were also sayaca and yellow-backed tanagers in this flock; buff-fronted and ochre-breasted foliage-gleaners, a streaked xenops, red-rumped caciques and yellow-eared woodpeckers. This was the most active feeding flock of birds we would see on the trip and more typical of the winter season when birds tend to flock up once their breeding season is over. We started down the trail, which is more like a cobblestone roadway, when we scared up a sooty grassquit into a nearby tree. Being another on the endemics, we took a good long look at this rather plain bird. While we looked at the grassquit, Bert was scanning the hillside for hawks and found a distant mantled hawk soaring against the rock hillside.

We then started down the trail stopping periodically to play the tape for rufous-crowned motmot and rufous-capped anthrush. Unfortunately, we had no luck with the motmot. We did have an antthrush respond to the tape but could never coax it into view. We did have quite a few flycatchers on this trail including sepia-capped, ochre-bellied, social, olive-green and streaked. We also stumbled upon, streak-capped antwren and white-throated thrush. As we returned to the van, we had a closer but still not 100% satisfying look at a pair of mantled hawks and a rufous-thighed kite with a lizard in its talons. When we got back to the van, we had “11eses” about 15 minutes early before heading up to the upper portion of the park. We did stop at a scenic overlook for a photographic opportunity of the valley and the “Finger of God”. Suffice it to say that this is a rock formation that looks like an index finger pointing up in the air.

We entered the upper portion of the park, drove up the road a short way before parking the van, put our lunches in our backpacks and then headed up the trail. We quickly ran into a slight obstacle as a tree had fallen across the path and we had to scamper up the hillside until we found the trail again. We were lucky that this was near a switchback so we did not have to scamper far. The trail could best be called quiet with the best bird seen being a white-collared foliage-gleaner and not everyone was able to see it before it disappeared. There were a few plain antvireos, brassy-breasted tanagers and a white-shouldered fire-eye. We were on the trail from 11:30 to 14:00 including a lunch stop at another scenic overlook.

We decided to cut our losses and head back to SDT and walk the trails there. We were back at the lodge at 15:15 and walked the upper trail from 15:40 to 18:15. We ran into one decent flock of foliage-gleaners and a plain-winged woodcreeper (the only new bird for the trip). We returned to the lodge in time to clean up for dinner, do the checklist and eat. When Andy counted, he said between the park, the trails at SDT and the feeders we had 85 species. What had seemed like a very slow day did in fact have many birds it just took a lot of work.

10-Dec-05 – Today was our venture to the High Altitude Trail and thank goodness the weather had broken or this would have been not possible or at best, miserable. As it turned out it was one of our favorite days of the trip. We may not have had the largest species count but just about everything, we ended up seeing was an endemic and most importantly, everyone saw all these specialty birds of this excursion extremely well! Breakfast was the usual ample buffet at the usual time with the usual departure from SDT. We made a quick stop in Novo Friburgo for diesel and started up the road to the high altitude trail. Because the roads are cobblestone, they can get extremely slippery when wet and over times Andy has learned that the van will not make it to the top. That leaves two options, walk it or have a second car from the lodge follow us and shuttle us up to the birding areas. Originally, groups would walk this road and it is a killer hike. In fact, more often than not, groups were worn out before getting to the Itatiaia spinetail spot and that is one of the crucial target birds of this adventure. The van got as far as it could go and we began shuttling people up the road at 8:10. There were 8 of us so we had to make three runs and each run took about 20 minutes roundtrip and each run was not without some adventure. We were finally all together and standing in the foggy mist hoping for it to break so we had some visibility and some birds. When the first group headed up the mountain, the rest of us had a blue-billed black tyrant (we later had another one up the trail when we were all together), Picazaro pigeon and a ringed kingfisher.

Once we were together, we slowly walked up the road towards the security gate that marked the Itatiaia spinetail zone. We walked slowly because the road was slippery and because we were trying for birds. The foggy lifted a bit and with some patience, we pulled in pallid spinetail, bay-chested warbler-finch, rufous-tailed antbird and mouse-colored tapaculo. We also had some juvenile diademed tanagers in the tree tops and a quick glimpse of a serra do mar tyrannulet and put our orders in for better looks at both. We made it to the security gates and the two guards came out to greet us, talk to Andy about why we were there and take our Passports, identification cards (in Andy’s case) and Bob’s forged passport information. Today was the one day that Bob forgot to carry his Passport or a copy of it with him and today was the one day he needed it. Being a resourceful young man, Andy came up with a solution. Once this was all taken care of, we picked up a large-tailed antshrike, several adult diademed tanagers (much, much more satisfying). We tried for the serra do mar tyrannulet at the base of the step up to the top without luck and then started up the 603 steps to the top of the mountain at 2,219 meters.

Fortunately, a lot closer to the bottom than to the top of the stairs, Lynn spotted the Itatiaia spinetail. Our primary target was found and our legs were saved. Also at this spot, we had Spix’s spinetail, rufous-capped antshrike and another serra do mar tyrannulet. The best part of all three of these birds was that they were close, in the open and they were below us so we had great views. We made our way back to the security gate, gathered all our documentation (including Bob). We walked down the hill to the car and had lunch before running the shuttle down to the second trail we would walk on this adventure looking for swallow-tailed cotinga.

We would walk this trail from 11:30 to 16:00 and had tons of flycatchers along the way. Very early on, we had a very distant swallow-tailed cotinga perched in a tree top on the far ridge. It was tickable but hardly satisfying for such a pretty bird. Shortly thereafter, we had a pair perched up much closer and better looks but I at least wanted a better look although this pair was good enough to count. We continued along the road and had to gray monjita, 2 yellow-browed woodpeckers, 2 hooded siskins and a pair of short-billed elaenia building a nest. Seems like the birds here were coming two by two; maybe they knew something we did not. Flycatchers seen along this route were piratic, Euler’s and social; southern-beardless and planalto tyrannulet; great kiskadee, and tropical kingbird. Another excellent find for the day was a variable antshrike.

We were getting worn out from today’s hikes so we headed back to the van; however, we ran across a group of maybe a half dozen swallow-tailed cotinga. These were in the treetops, below us in fantastic light affording us “CMF” views. Now this is how to see a bird like this! It was then back to SDT for a shower, a drink and our last dinner. As we were once again enjoying the veranda, a thunderstorm rolled in. See those birds did know something. Anyway, we enjoyed dinner before heading back to our rooms to pack for the trip home and hope that the rain would let up enough for us to go on the Wetlands Excursion on Sunday.

11-Dec-05 – Another rainy day that precluded the Wetlands Excursion all together and made little or no sense to try the Theodoro Trail in the rain. The final 16km drive to the wetlands is on a dirt tract that becomes impassable in the rain and the Theodoro trail would make for a very wet day before heading home. The wetlands trail has a lowland forest area so that was a bit disappointing but we sat back, enjoyed the feeders and killed time. Our efforts were rewarded with an orange-bellied euphonia and our last looks at all the hummingbirds, tanagers, thrushes and toucanets we had become very familiar with during our stay at SDT.

We had to vacate our rooms for other arriving guests but were able to put our bags in two other rooms so we slowly took turns getting ready for the long trip home and enjoyed lunch before heading out to the airport at 16:15. Because it was Sunday, Andy advised that we give ourselves plenty of time to deal with the weekend traffic of Rio. Well, maybe because of the weather or maybe we were just ahead of all the traffic but for whatever reasons we were at the airport by 18:00. In other words, we hit no traffic. We did manage to pick up one last trip bird, that being Cocoi herons. We checked in, went through security, had a bit to eat at a bar and spent lots of time at the gate as we had a 22:55 flight. We boarded and took off on time and then settled in for our overnight flight to Miami.

12-Dec-05 – We arrived in Miami at 4:00, made it through customs in no time at all as we were the only arriving flight at that hour and then had to find some place open for a coffee. That turned out to be Burger King. Around 6:00 we made our way through security and waited at the gate until our 9:00 flight to Philadelphia. All this quality airport gate time and the rainy days allowed me to read two books on this trip. We gathered our bags and made it home about 24 hours after we had left SDT.

I would like to end this report with some acknowledgements to all the people who helped make this trip a success. First, the highest thanks need to be given to our hosts Andy and Cristina along with all the staff at Serra dos Tucanos. They run a first rate operation, that includes comfortable accommodations, good food and excellent birding opportunities. Not only would I highly recommend a visit to SDT to friends but also I would like to come back here again at a different time of year. Next, I would like to thank Ron French who visited SDT in February 2004 and told us all about the wonderful time he enjoyed here. We now all know why Ron sang such high praises for Andy and the lodge. Next, a big thank you to Naomi for coordinating our little adventure. She was our contact point with Andy, took care of investigating airfares, and visa requirements. Lastly, a big thanks to everyone on the trip, including our two European guest visitors for making this an excellent visit to the Atlantic rain forest of southeast Brazil.