Brazil - July 2024 - Trip List

We saw exactly 300 species over the nearly nine days that we had birding. As always we let a few go, and there were plenty of annoying heard-onlys that also don't make the grade here. For instance try as we might we could not see the Pheasant Cuckoo we could clearly hear in the Vale de Bencao on our first morning, although this was made up for by the amazingly unexpected views of the Pavonine Cuckoo in the same location a couple of days later.

As you can see from the below list, days 1-2 were cerrado habitat, on day 3 there is a transition to the northern Pantanal, and from thereon in that is what it is all about. As I said before we likely tried to do too much in too short a time frame, most trips seem to be about two weeks for this tried and tested itinerary with another day or so in each habitat. That said, we did pretty well. 

I can highly recommend Agami Nature Tours as a birding tour company, even if they can't produce Agami Herons on demand! Everything that could be controlled went perfectly, things that could not were just dealt with with minimal fuss. Along with the aforementioned minor crisis management skills, our guide Bradley Davis knew the birds inside out and was great company to boot. He's fun to travel with and comes highly rated by our small group, so much so that we are already planning further trips with both him and Agami.

Of the 300 birds 138 were lifers for me which is pretty good going. Most of my cross-over seemed to come from Northern Argentina. Somehow I photographed over 100 species which I had not realised at the time but is one of the reasons it has taken me quite so long to get this trip report done. And let's not forget the mammals - this is the Jaguar trip, and whilst we only saw two they were magnificent. A Puma was a huge surprise, and the Ocelot simply magical. Capybaras have bags of personality, and the Giant Otters were amazing. We were sad to miss Tapir, Giant Anteater and Yellow Anaconda but you can't have it all! In summary one of the best wildlife trips I've been on and my South American birding addiction has been dealt a real blow. Bring on the next one!