The trip report is Here
(Ed Wilson)
Great Horned Owl: peering out on ‘tourist duty’ at a well-know stake-out.
“I’ll impress them with my teeth” – Jaguar: one of the prime targets of the trip – we saw 2 animals.
Rufous Hornero: makes an oven-shaped mud nest. Hornero is Spanish for oven.
Cattle Tyrant: over one-third of the birds in South America are fly-catchers and tyrants are a large family of them.
A male Vermilion Flycatcher : the female looks remarkably similar to out Spotted Flycatcher.
Great Kiskadee: one of the most common birds in towns everywhere in South America. A piercing call of its name ‘ kiss-ka-deee’.
Scarlet-headed Blackbird: blackbirds in the New World are not related to our blackbirds (which re thrushes) bur part of the New World Oriole family. This in turn is not related to the Old World Orioles other than many being yellow.
Black-capped Donacobius: for many years thought of as a species of wren!
Chotoy Spinetail: spinetails are hard to photograph as they skulk.
Dragonfly sp.: we saw very few in the Pantanal wetland for some reason.
White-tipped Dove: a bird usually more often heard than seen but we were lucky.
Chestnut-bellied Guan: in most areas Guans have been hunted for many years and are typically very shy. Luckily in the Pantanal National Park they have been protected and are less shy.
Pale-crested Woodpecker: many species of woodpecker in South America.
Great Rufous Woodcreeper: and many species of woodcreeper too. This is the biggest.
Blue-throated Piping Guan: related to guans of course and similarly usually shy.
Campo Flicker: a type of woodpecker – the equivalent perhaps of our Green Woodpecker in spending a lot of time on the ground.
Black-collared Hawk: in the new world hawks are what we would know as buzzards (though the family is subbuteo and not buteo).
Butterfly sp: always good to get a decent photo of these. Many, like the electric blue Morphos, never seem to rest.
2 x Yellow-fronted Woodpeckers: they were looking for their rival after we played a recording of their calls.
Grey-hooded Attila: another sub-family of flycatchers. Usually hiding in tree-tops.
Green-backed or Amazon White-tailed Trogon: trogons are worldwide in the tropics but essentially sedentary. So how did they get to Africa, Asia and America? birds evolved post Gondwanaland.
Long-tailed Tyrant; with many tyrants there are plenty of different adaptations.
Long-tufted Screech-Owl: screech-owls are small – dove sized and don’t screech anyway.
Sayaca Tanager: very common and often dismissed but seen well ...
Green-headed Tanager and Red-necked Tanagers; look like the children have been left paint pots to colour them.
Red-necked Tanager: and the amazing thing is when they fly in to the trees they almost disappear.
Streamer-tailed Tyrants: and another adaptation. These go around in noisy gangs and display loudly at intruders.
Brazilian Tapaculo: tapaculos are small brown / black birds that skulk in dense undergrowth and are difficult to see let alone photograph. This one had not read the book about how to behave.
Firewood-gatherer doing what is says on the tin. The nest is a huge pile of sticks.
Flower: there were dozens of different flowers in the Cerrado grasslands and this is one more or less at random.
Sooty Tyrannulets: these are stream-side specialist – a bit like Dippers. Adult feeding young here.
Helmeted Manakin: manakins of the New World are nothing to do with the small finch-like manikins of Africa and Asia. Females are typically green and the males gaudy. Many form noisy leks. But never easy to see.
Band-winged Nightjar: this we found trapped in a toilet-block where it had presumably been hunting insects attracted to the lights at night.
“I'm just taking the Giant Anteater for a run”. Giant Anteaters have very poor eyesight and rely mainly on smell. He would have been aware of the guide trying to steer him towards us, but..
.....charge! Giant Anteater approaching at speed and ran right through our group without probably even knowing we were there. Has very long claws to rip open termite mounds (not ants) and runs on its wrists to avoid damaging the claws.
Sedge Wren: another large family in South America. Many species, though not this, ‘duet’ apparently quite spontaneously.
Pampas Deer: a few mammals to see on the grassland other than the Giant Anteater.
(Ed Wilson)
Sunbittern: fantastic markings.
Say ‘ah’! – Cayman opens wide.
Large-billed Tern: one of the largest terns.
Roseate Spoonbill: amazing colour.
Jaguar: same animal.
Jabiru with prey: a kind of stork.
Hyacinth Macaws: the world’s largest parrot.
Southern Crested Caracara: the ‘crow’ of much of South America.
Giant River Otter with lunch.
A female Bare-faced Curassow.
Nanday Parakeet: a speciality of the area.
Another butterfly.
Planalto Tyrannulet: what a sweetie.
Tegu Lizard.
Rusty-barred Barred Owl: another good-looking owl.
Green-headed Tanager: just how could anyone design that.
Black-tufted Marmoset: another sweetie.
Swallow-tailed butterfly.
Tunnel spider sp. Do not mess ...
Saffron Finch male: another ‘garden bird’ in many towns.
Crested Black Tyrant: not spectacular but well-named.
Collared Crescentchest: another attractive sprite.
(Ed Wilson)