Minas Gerais- July 2018 (1 Viewer)

Well it's hard to believe that it's already been 4 months since Melissa and I did a quick trip to Minas Gerais. With only 9 days off from work, this trip focused on a section of Brazil that holds a number of highly range restricted endemics and some truly rare birds. The biggest catalyst of the trip was the recent discovery of the Blue-eyed Ground Dove (July 2015) and the even more recent announcement that the newly created reserve was now open for visitors (opened roughly April 2018).

To be honest, I wrote up the trip report and blog posts almost immediately after the trip, but they stood 95% complete as I got caught up in fall migration, house renovations, and way too much work.

Anyways, the trip ended up being a huge success although at a very fast pace, covering 4,000 km in just 8 birding days!

I've broken the blog posts up into three sections with the first covering the first 2 days just north east of Rio in the Atlantic rainforest. Our first target was the Gray-winged Cotinga which luckily cooperated the first morning of the trip followed by the coastal Restinga Antwren the same after noon. The second day found us starting at the renowned Regua reserve where we managed to find Shrike-like Cotinga, a bird I've been wanting to see for a long time (and also dipped in NE Brazil the year before). After a morning of birding Regua it was already time to head north towards Belo Horizonte with a quick stop for Three-toed Jacamar along the way.

Check out the blog for pics and more details on the first two days!

https://budgetbirders.com/2018/11/11/a-sunrise-to-remember-back-to-brazil/

Best,

Ross

After the first two successful days in the Atlantic Rainforest, it was time to head inland and north to the Cipo Plateau near Belo Horizonte. The Cipo Plateau is a wonderful area with fantastic scenery and some truly range restricted specialties including Rock Tapaculo, Cipo Cinclodes, Cipo Canastero, and Hyacinth Visorbearer. For there, the main target of the trip, Blue-eyed Ground Dove, was only a single all night drive away and soon it was dawn and we were standing at the edges of the nearly created preserve for one of the rarest birds in the world. Luckily, although the dove is only currently known from two small spots, these individuals seem to have some strong site fidelity and it didn't take too long until we were only a few meters away from a lovely male. From there we drove to Lapa Grande located on the outskirts of Montes Claros where we saw a few more highly range restricted specialties including Reiser's Tyrannulet and Dry Forest Sabrewing.

For more details about this section of the trip, check out the blog!

https://budgetbirders.com/2018/11/22/back-from-the-grave-of-extinction-brazil-belo-horizonte-begd-lapa-grande/

Best,

Ross

The final leg of this short trip was a visit to Serra de Canastra National Park and Itatiaia National Park. After a 7ish hour drive from Monte Claros, we arrived on the outskirts of Serra de Canstra and spent the night in a small town. The next day was dedicated to finding Brazilian Merganser and after an entire morning of effort, we finally connected with a pair. We also managed great looks at Brasilia Tapaculo and that afternoon/next morning visited the top of the plateau for a number of other cool species. With only one more day left in Brazil, we spent the morning in Itatiaia National Park for a few main targets and finished the trip along the coast for Black-hooded Antwren. Overall is was a very successful trip with all of our main targets seen in 8 days and 4,000 km! Check out the blog for more details on the last part of our trip.

https://budgetbirders.com/2018/12/02/brazil-blog-post-3/

Best,

Ross