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Since our inaugural run of the Field Guides Northeast Brazil tour in 1993 – for many years, the only tour being done in Brazil’s bird-rich northeast -- it’s undergone relatively little change in venues, mainly because there is so little good habitat left. However, the order of stops and general logistics have continued to evolve, and the shift from 2015 to this year was the most significant in a bunch of years. This was the result, mainly, of having some roads greatly improved, which opened possibilities for some nice birding stops. The biggest of these was incorporating a visit to the remote Raso da Catarina of north-central Bahia, which is a vast series of redrock canyons that are the breeding grounds of Lear’s (Indigo) Macaws; all but one of the roughly 500 surviving pairs of these regal birds breeds there. Our visit, on 20 January, was a day I will never forget. It was truly spectacular.

It had been raining like crazy in most of the caatinga, especially over the past 2-3 weeks (in fact, this year’s tour was the second-wettest we’ve ever done, save the deluge of 2003). The little town of Canudos in the outback of Bahia was our staging point. There were stars out the night before we were to go into the Raso, but steady rain greeted us at 03:30, as we boarded our trusty bus with longtime driver Marcondes at the wheel. Two 4-WD vehicles led the way along slippery, muddy roads that our bus and tires were not made to handle, but, as predicted, we made it to the point where we would transfer to the trucks for the last 7 kilometers in to the canyons. That’s where the fun began. With everyone tightly packed into the trucks, we whirled into the pitch-black night through pounding rain, bumping and banging and sliding along, the (tiny) windows steamed to the max, the road barely visible ahead through the ineffective wipers and dim headlights. But, as predicted, we made that, too. Rain continued to pelt down as the first hint of a new day appeared on the eastern horizon. At that point, the inspiring satellite images I’d shown yesterday didn’t seem likely to become reality, yet sure enough, the rain lightened a bit, and more, gradually, as the day slowly dawned. Emerging from the cramped trucks, we staggered into the foggy drizzle, as our local guide led the way toward… nothing interesting we could see. The place was a silent, red-gray moonscape with scraggly vegetation clumped around – but our position on the satellite image showed us to be a mere 200 meters from the edge of a magnificent canyon where, we hoped, the macaws would soon be waking up and taking wing toward far-distant foraging sites. Soon, the first pair was heard, far away, in the fog. We waited, straining to spot the birds with very limited visibility… and then they materialized out of the mist, calling consistently, much to everyone’s joyous relief. Yes!! They were here! As we hustled toward the canyon rim, a wonderful little sound caught my attention, a sound I’d never heard before, but I knew what it had to be: a dawn-singing Lesser Wagtail-Tyrant. I managed to squeeze in a really sweet recording, eagerly show everybody their lifer, and we continued the hike to the cliffs. We arrived at the canyon rim a bit too hurriedly... and the place *exploded* with screaming macaws and Blue-crowned Parakeets! It was sudden and shocking, birds everywhere hollering their heads off. I immediately thought to myself, “Oh s**t, why didn’t the guy tell us to ease up slowly?” And I should have known better, but I hadn’t been able to see the cliff edge until we were practically on top of it; believe me, I’ll get that right next time around, for sure. But the show was far from over, even as dozens of birds flew off, toward feeding areas 50+ km to the east. Numerous pairs that had already selected breeding ledges continued to wheel around at and below eye-level, looking pretty marvelous against those ancient, red cliffs, even under dark, drizzly skies. Several pairs sat on the canyon rim or on nesting ledges, and the loud voices of the birds echoed all around for over an hour as we soaked it all in (including a new round of heavy showers as we walked out). I made and edited some 4K video, which you can see on the Field Guides website by clicking on the blue Facebook logo on the right side of our homepage, then scrolling down a ways (or do a search). I know that everyone truly appreciated having this exceptional experience, and I was absolutely thrilled to the max! I reckon next and future years will be even better (if less dramatic) now that I know just how to do it and weather couldn’t be much worse.

Logistics are extraordinarily complicated for this tour, but all went super-well. The only serious glitch was weather-related: we were unable to make it into Murici Reserve on the miserably muddy roads, even in a Toyota Bandeirante. Unfortunately, that was the first full day of the tour, and some among us were seriously disappointed (understandably so). In the long run, however, we lost only Alagoas Antwren (there are apparently only 4-5 birds left, all at Murici). Pretty much everything else fell into place, here or there. An excellent, perched White-collared Kite stuck for 3 minutes of scope views, a mega-rare event of the scale one can barely dare to dream! We managed to dig up a Pinto’s Spinetail after sorely missing it last year, and we found a breeding site for Jandaya Parakeet (gorgeous bird!) that I think will probably be consistently productive. Our day at Frei Caneca was great, in large part because I hired 4-WD’s, fearing muddy roads would shut us out there, too (but we just made it in ;-) After that, getting Long-tailed Woodnymph, Alagoas Tyrannulet, Orange-bellied Antwren and a few other birds was all we had to do. Oh yes, and find Pinnated Bittern (we ended up with three, real nice).

The caatinga was super-green and wet around Petrolina, and birds came easy. A Little Nightjar singing at 07:30 was a “lifer” for me, especially after it responded to playback by flying in and landing! A marsh stop near Joazeiro incorporated into the tour a few years ago paid off big this year, with at least seven(what?!) Stripe-backed Bitterns. We couldn’t drive up the steep hill into the Fringe-backed Fire-eye forest, so had to walk in and out, and it was raining too hard to bird from arrival at about 07:00 until about 11:00 (aargh). When it finally let up, however, we nailed the fire-eye at the last minute (Yee-Hawww!). We also pulled up a pair of Pectoral Antwrens, a Northeast endemic that has become increasingly harder to find due to habitat loss.

Lençois and Chapada Diamantina were good to us despite much of the chapada having suffered a serious fire two months earlier. Our long-reliable site for Sincora Antwren was totally wiped out, but I quickly found another spot that had somehow not burned and pulled in a pair of this distinctive, recently described species super-close. Diamantina Tapaculo was fabulous, as were Rufous-sided Pygmy-Tyrant and Gray-backed Tachuri, but hummers were real scarce, with no sign of a Hooded Visorbearer (nor any red Callandria) in the usual areas. We didn’t get that spectacular hummer until our last morning, but sure enough, a fantastic male was awaiting us there, singing away as we walked up (graças a Deus!). The video is pretty thrilling – watch for it to eventually show up on our Facebook page, mentioned above. At that point, we had little time left for a shot at Broad-tipped Hermit and Sao Francisco Sparrow, but we blasted out to the habitat to try. We managed to pull up a hermit right at the buzzer, but no sparrow, mainly because a power line had been put in right over the best area for the bird and all of the vegetation close to the road was bulldozed. I'll have to figure out how to resurrect this one for next year ;-) Besides the sparrow, I guess Ash-throated Casiornis was about the only endemic/important bird we missed on the main tour.

The extension roared out of the blocks with Bahia Antwren, Band-tailed Antwren, and Eastern Striped Manakin. Boa Nova was the best its been in a while (although it’s always very good), with everything coming quite easily, more vocal than usual for this time of year and with fine mixed-species flock action, perhaps due to the prolonged rains. Giant Snipe at our feet was probably the most-appreciated highlight (video is very cool, check it out, below), if not bumped out of first-place by a remarkably close pair of Bahia Tyrannulets. Pink-legged Graveteiro, another super-distinctive endemic described to science only recently (1996), was a nail-biter this year, but we totally rocked it at the last moment (whew!). Out of Porto Seguro, we saw Black-capped Screech-Owl real well, a Hook-billed Hermit perched for several seconds (not quite long enough for all to get on it), and we lucked out with a (female) rarely seen Racket-tailed Coquette. Several White-winged Cotingas graced the scopes, as did a male Black-headed Berryeater and a handsome Ringed Woodpecker (endemic subspecies tinnunculus). Unfortunately, White-winged Potoo was dead-silent, perhaps having been harassed just too much by other birder-photographers in the days ahead of our visit.

In the following list, you’ll see numerous comments, some from me, others from Pepe, and you’ll notice that there are some species that appear out of order (especially in the antbirds, ovenbirds/woodcreepers, and flycatchers). This is a quirk of numerous taxonomic shifts that kicked in between the time our checklist and triplist were generated. We apologize for this, and trust that you’ll be able to disentangle things fairly easy; it won’t be an issue in the future. Pepe and I had a great time birding with you, and certainly hope to see most of you again as soon as your plans permit, for more of big, beautiful, birdy Brazil!

– Abraços para todos!

KEYS FOR THIS LIST
One of the following keys may be shown in brackets for individual species as appropriate: * = heard only, I = introduced, E = endemic, N = nesting, a = austral migrant, b = boreal migrant

Masked Ducks showed really well this year -- but only at a couple of ponds! Digiscope-photo copyright Bret Whitney.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Highlights among the many bugs and other beasts we saw along the way must include the huge tarantula we saw at Baturite, the perfectly camouflaged leaf-litter toad there as well, that enorrrmous toad (Bufo icterotis) at Frei Caneca, and the monster (8+ feet) Tropical Rat Snake (Spilotes pullatus) crossing the road near Porto Seguro, on the extension.

Totals for the tour: 441 bird taxa and 6 mammal taxa