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GENERAL INFO & SITE ACCOUNTS |
PART TWO |
GENERAL
Since many years a trip to Brazil and in particular
the Atlantic Rainforest in the southeast has been one of the destinations I was
hoping to visit once in a lifetime. The main reason for this is the abundance
of endemic birds in the area. The nowadays highly threatened and fragmented
Atlantic Forest (with only about 7% of its forests remaining) hosts the largest
number of endemic birds in the world. The whole area holds 199 endemic birds and
extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in
the north to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland towards Paraguay
and Misiones Province in Argentina. We restricted our trip to the Atlantic
Forest visiting sites in Rio de Janeiro state and the area around Iguacu NP at
the Brazilian-Argentinean border. Still this area holds about 580 bird species
of which 133 are AF endemics. This time we didn’t book a complete tour with one
company but instead booked accommodations at two highly recommended bird lodges
in Rio de Janeiro state during the first 10 days, followed by a 4 day tour to
Iguacu and ending with 2 days in Rio de Janeiro city. The first 6 nights/7 days
we stayed at the excellent Serra dos Tucanos Lodge (www.serradostucanos.com.br)
located about one and a half hours drive from Rio. The comfortable lodge is
surrounded by forest and the bird feeders in the garden are a real treat with
dozens of daily visiting birds. Beforehand I made arrangements for taxi
transfers and excursions by e-mail with Andy Foster who runs and owns the lodge
together with his wife Cristina. On arrival at the lodge Andy had already set
up an excellent itinerary with daily guided excursions to interesting birding
sites in the area ranging in altitude between 450 and 2000m. Andy himself
accompanied us during the excursions and proved to be an excellent and
professional bird guide. Besides that he was a very pleasant guy who really
knows the area and its birds like the back of his hand. For the second leg of
our trip we booked 3 nights/4 days at the wonderful Guapi Assu Bird Lodge (www.guapiassubirdlodge.com). This
very comfortable lodge is located about a 45 minutes drive from Serra dos
Tucanos and about 2 hours from Rio. The lodge is part of the fantastic REGUA
conservation project (www.regua.co.uk)
both of which are managed by Nicholas and Raquel Locke. The lodge is
beautifully situated on a hill overlooking the restored wetland and forested
mountains in the back. It is non-profit making with all income generated going
to their excellent conservation work. Our stay here really was a wonderful
experience. We had a very large and comfortable room with balcony. The lodge
had a comfortable lounge and dining room where we enjoyed the delicious freshly
cooked meals and we relaxed at the nice veranda enjoying the beautiful view and
the birds coming to the feeders. During the day we ventured out into the
reserve with our excellent bird guide Adelei Carvalho da Cunha. Adelei’s skills
as a bird guide were really outstanding. His eyesight and ability to localize
birds and imitate birdcalls were really unbelievably good. For the last leg of
our trip to Iguacu and Rio city we booked a private tour at Brazil Nature Tours
(www.opendoortur.com.br). The tour
included accommodation, transportation and private bird guide at Iguacu, followed
by accommodation, transport and a half day private city tour in Rio. The tour
was perfectly arranged by BNT although the bird guide wasn’t of the high
quality we were used to at Serra dos Tucanos and Guapi Assu Lodge.
PREPARATIONS
For general birding
preparations we used the usual websites like www.fatbirder.com and www.bsc-eoc.org/links/links.jsp. I checked out several reports on the web
published at www.travellingbirder.com and www.birdtours.co.uk and after reading them it became pretty obvious that birding in the
Atlantic Forest with Serra dos Tucanos and Regua as a base was very popular and
highly recommended. In the field we used the new Field guide to the birds of
Brazil by Tomas Sigrist. One disadvantage of this book is that it contains all
the birds of Brazil, so you have to go through a lot of plates to identify a
bird in the field. Some of the plates are fairly poor but the book is still far
much better then the Souza book. The other Sigrist book with the southeast
birds in it only was out of print. For general travel information we used the
Lonely Planet of Brazil.
GENERAL
INFORMATION
Although poverty exists
(especially in the big cities), Brazil is by no means a poor or underdeveloped
country. In fact it is the world’s eight largest economy and the political and
economic leader in Latin America. It has large and very well developed
agricultural, mining and manufacturing sectors. Brazilian export is booming.
The major export products include coffee, cars, steel, ethanol, textiles and
electrical equipment. In 2007 Brazil launched a four-year plan to spend 300
billion US$ to modernise its road network, power plants and ports. The people
are very helpful and friendly but virtually nobody speaks any English. The unit
of currency is the Brazilian Real. The exchange rate during our visit was R$
1,78 against one US$ and R$ 2,60 against one Euro. Changing money in cities and
bigger towns is usually possible at ATM machines however it is sometimes
difficult to find one that accepts your particular card. So it is advised to
bring some cash money (US$ or Euros). At the Rio airport we couldn’t find any
ATM so we had to change cash money at the exchange office in the arrivals
hall.
GETTING
THERE
Flights to Rio from The Netherlands are offered by several airlines like TAP, Iberia, Air France and KLM with the latter flying via Sao Paulo. Normally we prefer to fly from Dusseldorf in Germany because it is closer to our home, but this time flights from Amsterdam were much cheaper. Probably due to the economic crisis prices had dropped significantly and we made an excellent deal with TAP Airlines at Euro 510 each including all taxes.
GETTING
AROUND
All transport was
pre-arranged through the lodges and through Brazil Nature Tours. During the
excursions from Serra dos Tucanos Andy acted as our driver and bird guide using
his own private car. He also arranged a taxi for the airport pick-up and the
transfer to REGUA. Except short drives to the start of some trailheads we did
not use any car in REGUA. The transfer back to the airport was arranged by
REGUA. All transportation during the last part of our trip was arranged by
Brazil Nature Tours. Road conditions were excellent with all roads asphalted
except the last
WEATHER
AND WHEN TO GO
The period from late October
until March is summer time with high temperatures ranging between 20 and 40
degrees. During this period the birds are breeding and are much more vocal, but
this is also the period with the highest rainfall. Between April and September
temperatures are much more pleasant ranging between 15 and 30 degrees during
the day, and there is also less rainfall. During this period there are more
mixed flocks but the birds are less calling. However due to the lower
temperatures the birds are often more active throughout the day. We decided to
go more or less in the transition between these two periods (second half of
September) hoping to have fairly dry weather at pleasant temperatures. From
birding point of view this is also a good period because there is still
evidence of mixed flocks and many birds have started calling. However in
general the weather can be unpredictable year-round as we experienced also. We
had many cloudy days but luckily only one full day of rain. We arrived on a
warm and sunny day but the next 6 days at Serra dos Tucanos it was mostly
cloudy with some rain. However we were still very lucky. On a couple of
mornings we ventured out for excursions leaving the lodge behind us shrouded in
clouds and mist but when arriving at the birding sites it mostly stayed dry
with even sometimes a bit of sun. On the last day at SdT it rained all day. In
the afternoon we transferred to REGUA and had to stay in the lodge because of
the rain. The following day it was cloudy but dry, followed by two warm and
sunny days. We arrived at Iguacu in sweltering moist heat (37 degrees) but the
following days were cool and cloudy with some rain. In Rio it was cloudy the
first day followed by sunny weather on the day of departure.
ACCOMODATIONS
& FOOD
The food in Brazil was a real treat. I
don’t know if this counts for the whole of Brazil but the meals we had were
really outstanding with delicious meat and fish dishes accompanied by a variety
of vegetables and salads. Especially the food at REGUA was a real delight. On
our last evening in Rio we were advised by our guide to go to a Churascaria restaurant called El
Porcao in Ipanema. Well we did not regret his advise. The grilled meat we had
there was probably the most delicious, juicy and tasteful meat we ever had. It
is fairly expensive to Brazilian standards but highly recommended. Brazil has a
wide range of accommodations from basic to high luxury. We mainly stayed at
midrange to luxury hotels and lodges we had the idea that the standard of
quality is fairly high compared with many other countries in Latin America. We
stayed in the following lodges and hotels:
Serra
dos Tucanos Lodge
(www.serradostucanos.com.br): comfortable lodge catering
mostly to birders located about a 11/2 hours drive from Rio. It has a nice main
lounge, dining room, back veranda and patio and a small swimming pool. The bird
feeders in the garden are the best I have ever seen. Food and service was
excellent. Despite its natural setting there was a bit of traffic noise
especially in our room which was located at the front side (read roadside) of
the lodge. Our room was fairly comfortable and clean although it was fairly
small. The bathroom was on the hallway but we did not have to share it with
other guests.
Guapi
Assu Bird Lodge
(www.guapiassubirdlodge.com.br): a very comfortable lodge
beautifully located on a hill overlooking the REGUA conservation reserve. It is
located about a 2 hours drive from Rio and 45 minutes from Serra dos Tucanos.
The lodge has a nice and spacious lounge annex dining room with an adjacent
veranda providing beautiful views of the reserve. However the feeding tables
were not as good as at SdT. In the back of the lodge is a small swimming pool.
We had a very comfortable and spacious room with a large comfy bathroom and
balcony. From our balcony the view on the reserve was really marvellous. The
food was one of the many highlights at REGUA including the refreshing
caipirinha’s in the evening. This was one of the nicest places we had ever
stayed at.
Hotel
San Martin (www.hotelsanmartin.com.br): very comfortable large hotel
located only
Everest Rio Hotel (www.everest.com.br):
very comfortable 4-star hotel located in Ipanema only one block from the beach.
Large comfy rooms, rooftop restaurant and small swimming pool. Excellent
location.
BIRDING
FACTS
As mentioned before the
Atlantic Forest is the world’s hotspot in terms of endemic bird species. The
area we visited has a bird list of about 580 birds of which 133 are AF
endemics. We did a really good job by seeing an amazing 355 species which is
more then 60% of all birds occurring in the region. An additional 16 species
were heard only. We saw 93 AF endemics and I added 209 species to my life list
of now 2981 species. The first week at Serra dos Tucanos Lodge we birded
several different sites ranging in altitude between 450 and 2000m which
produced 252 species of which 91 were not seen during the rest of the trip. The
following 3 days at REGUA we mostly concentrated on lowland birds. We saw 183
species and added 60 birds to our trip list. Of these 48 were not seen on any
other site. The two and a half days at Iguacu produced 123 species adding 40
species to our trip list. In Rio we added another 2 species to our trip list.
The highlights of the trip for me were Black-fronted Piping-guan, Red-legged Seriema, Common
Potoo (with a chick), Saffron Toucanet, Blond-crested
Woodpecker, Giant Antshrike, Hooded Berryeater, Bare-throated Bellbird,
Swallow-tailed Cotinga, Brazilian Tanager and Half-collared
Sparrow. However we also missed some
birds which were high on my wish list like Giant Snipe, White-eared Puffbird, Black-billed
Scythebill and Eastern Striped Manakin. We saw remarkably few raptor species probably
because of the many cloudy days.
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