Brazil with Bird's Wildlife & Nature - 9th June 2023

Once we had fought our way through the Cricket carnage we still had time for a final look around the grounds at Porto Jofree with good views of Crested Oropendola, a flock of Greyish Baywings and the three Ibis species along with the ever stately and frankly intimidating Jabirus.

Capybara

Toilet Tree Frog on the rim...

Bare-faced Ibis

Buff-necked Ibis

Buff-necked Ibis

Plumbeous Ibis

Jabiru

Grey Breasted Martins

A final pass by some Black Skimmers

Black Vulture

Black Vulture

Greyish Baywing

Greyish Baywing

It was the vast Victoria Lily pads that caused a slight delay in leaving as we all wanted to get up close to these iconic floating platforms.  A Wattled Jacana with three chicks poked up underneath it with legs dangling unfortunately did not venture onto one of them for us!

Victoria Lilies

And a pretty Butterfly

Time to get back on the road to start retracing our steps down the Transpantaneira and we soon stopped at our favoured bridge where Spinetails and Donocobius were seen well again along with a couple of dapper Tawny Bellied Seedeaters amongst some Rusty Collared relatives.  

Tawny Bellied Seedeaters in the front - Rusty Collared Seedeater behind

Rusty Collared Seedeater

Rusty Collared Seedeater

Rusty Collared Seedeater

Rusty Collared Seedeater

Southern Screamer

Turquoise Fronted Amazon

Turquoise Fronted Amazon

Snail Kite

Limpkin

A White-tailed Goldenthroat was a welcome new Hummer and Rheas watched us from the drier fields and a little further down the road Eduardo’s eagle-eyes caused a sudden stop again for a rather scarce migrant White-banded Mockingbird.

White-banded Mockingbird

White-banded Mockingbird

Tropical Kingbirds

Our next base was at Pantanal Mata Grosso – the only lodge actually on the road itself.  It was scorching hot and two quite uncomfortable walks either side of lunch provided us with a wealth of new birds in quite trying conditions not helped by the state of the trails. It was flycatcher central with Fuscous, Short-crested, Vermillion, Sepia-capped, Plain Inezia, Stripe-necked and Pearly Vented Tody-Tyrants, Forest Elaenia, White-headed Marsh and Cattle Tyrants, Tropical Kingbirds and Southern Beardless Tyrannulet. 

Cattle Tyrant

Fuscous Flycatcher

Sepia-capped Flycatcher

Stripe-necked Tody-Tyrant

Stripe-necked Tody-Tyrant

Pearly Vented Tody-Tyrant

Ashy Headed Greenlets, Helmeted Manakins and Pale-bellied Tyrant-Manakins were seen well and Buff-breasted Wren and Pale Legged Hornero were seen in the margins along with Mato Grossa Antbird, a smart female Great Antshrike and a very showy Red-billed Scythebill. 

Helmeted Manakin

Helmeted Manakin

Silver-beaked Tanager

 Buff-breasted Wren 

The Dragonflies and Damselflies were amazing and dazzling in the sunlight.  I hope that I can find names for them at some stage.

Yellow-collared Macaw was one of our targets and we found a small group with Blue-crowned Parakeets and Turquoise-fronted Amazons.  They are another medium sized Macaw and are well named.

Yellow-collared Macaw 

Yellow-collared Macaw 

Yellow-collared Macaw 

Yellow-collared Macaw and Blue-crowned Parakeet

Blue-crowned Parakeet

Our short evening boat trip was fairly quiet but the usual Kingfishers showed well and there were quite a few Blue-throated Piping Guans and some showy Yellow-chinned Spinetails but it was the strange whistling that caught our attention and within a few seconds we had at long last seen a Sunbittern!  It was initially close to the bank but viewing was difficult although it never stopped singing.  Some curious positions in the boat had to be adopted to even get a chance of seeing it. 

Yacare Caiman

Green Kingfisher

Black-collared Hawk

Ringed Kingfisher

The rafts of floating Water Hyacinth were full of Grasshoppers!

Wattled Jacana

We headed back at sunset with the usual Band-tailed Nighthawk and Pauraque accompaniment and there was a big roost of noisy Amazons in the tree tops.

Band-tailed Nighthawk

A final torchlight walk out the back gave us Pauraque and possibly a Scissor-tailed Nightjar on the airstrip while the lights over the river at the lodge illuminated the Lesser Bulldog Bats as they dipped down for surface insects and Ferruginous Pygmy Owls started up as we turned in for the night.

Moth help required

Lesser Bulldog Bats