Rio de Janeiro A fairly uneventful Air Iberia flight to Rio. Then a couple of days doing 'the sites'; spending some time on Ipanema Beach; and enjoying Rio's night life. We did do some wildlife watching in the botanical gardens and near Christ the Redeemer. common marmoset  night heron   toco toucan    The Transpantaneira Early in our drive we got superb views of one of my favourite birds: sunbittern.  Conditions weren't always ideal for photography, but I did get a few reasonable shots: marsh deer    Perhaps the most interesting bird was a great rhea, a species I've only since once before. Rio Cuiba/Porto Jofre Most of August 8, 9 and 10 was spent on the Rio Cuiba, looking for jaguars. Luckily this was successful: we had three sightings. Two 'twitched' and one that I located.   We saw plenty of other stuff. The mammal highlights included: plenty of black howlers;   and both lesser and greater fishing bats. This is a greater.  We saw a variety of amphibians and reptiles. Including several green iguanas.  Birding from a boat had its limitation, but we still saw a fair amount. The rather 'unreal' hyacinth macaw being the highlight.   Amazon kingfishers were fairly common     Sadly, although they were seen fairly regularly, bare-faced currassows were always in dark patches of forest, making them hard to photograph.   The Transpantaneira The highlight of this journey was the amazing site of a fight between a Pantanal caiman and a yellow anaconda.   Long-nosed bats were seen flying from a nearby bridge.   The first mammal seen was crab-eating fox.   12 August     We spent the day flying back to Rio, picking up the hire car and driving to Tresopolis. 14 August Serra Dos Orgaos The highlight here was undoubtedly good views of a pair of, the rare and endemic, hooded berryeaters. Sadly, this is the best photo I managed.  15 August A long, long drive to Caraca. When we arrived we weren't disappointed with our accommodation - a monastery complete with its own bar - was one of my favourite places I ever stayed, and by miles the best value of our trip.   16/17 August Caraca We enjoyed watching the wolf on both days, but also spent the days wandering the, very hot, trails. Another 'target' species was masked titi-monkey. This proved rather elusive, but eventually we got reasonable views.  18 - 20 August Canastra After a long drive we arrived at Sao Roque de Minas, unfortunately I arrived feeling very ill and only had the energy for a very gentle walk around the town, seeing white-eyed parakeets. The hummingbird feeders at Vargem Bonia provided hummingbird photo opportunities: stripe-breasted starthroat    Birds seen at the waterfall included great dusky and white-collared swifts, as well as the superb helmeted manakin. Sadly this was the best photo I could manage.      21 August The day was spent getting to Ubatuba, a 10.5 hour drive, and consuming a gorgeous meal at the nice, but expensive Hotel Solar dos Aguas. 22 - 25 August This was meant to be a chill out on the beach time, for Michelle, but lousy weather meant only one day was spent on the beach! Apart from the first morning, when we just looked from our balcony, the weather was just about good enough for birding. Looking from our balcony wasn't totally without reward as several species were coming to the bird feeders, including this green honeycreeper.  The highlight of the Ubatuba area was undoubtedly the garden of Fazenda Folha Seca. The owner of this Fazenda seemed to spend most of the day, and I'd imagine a fair amount of his money, topping up his bird feeders. With the result that hundreds of birds were present; the numbers of hummingbirds was almost unbelievable! It did seem a bit like cheating, but it was a good place to take photos. festive coquettes were especially common  plain parakeet  blue dacnis   green-headed tanager  26 - 29 August Itatiaia National Park The first shock was Hotel Ype, which proved to be the most expensive hotel I've stayed in, in my life! Admittedly I do general seek out the budget end of the market. To recover from the shock, I spent a while composing myself by staring out of my room window. It was almost worth the shock, as a Tayra chose this moment to walk past our room! I was now in double shock, and my camera was on my bed, so it was disappearing by the time I took some photos.  It would have been difficult to imagine a much better start to my visit; indeed this was the highlight! Typically of rainforest, the birding was hard work and photography was difficult. Infact we spent quite a while around the hotel watching birds and capuchin monkeys coming to the numerous bird feeders. saffron toucanet  yellow-fronted woodpecker   black-google tanager   We tried a bit of spot-lighting. As usual for me, we saw very little, but this toad, Bufo ictericus, was pretty impressive.  We then left the reserve and moved into a, considerably cheaper, hotel in the town. 30 August Agulhas Negras Road Sadly road works meant we had a frustratingly short time in this superb area. Our car struggled with the rather dodgy roads as well. Sadly I failed to get any decent shots of some of my favourite birds, such as red-rumped warbling finch, plovercrest, diadem tanager and black-capped piprites. bay-chested warbling finch    |