Rhea (Rhea americana)

Posted on January 9, 2016 by Tara

The Rheas are large ratites (flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bone) in the order Rheiformes, native to South America, related to the ostrich and emu. There are two extant species: the greater or American rhea (Rhea americana) and the lesser or Darwin’s rhea (Rhea pennata).

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They have a large range over half of South America but most people will see them most easily in the Pantanal.

rhea

LEARN MORE ABOUT RHEAS

Wikipedia

Birdlife

Neotropical Birds

VIDEO

I struggled to find anything filmed in the wild but this one in a safari park is pretty good.

Hyacinth Macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus)

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Tara

The undisputed showstopper of the Pantanal is the magnificent Hyacinth Macaw; native to central and eastern South America. With a length (from the top of its head to the tip of its long pointed tail) of about 100 cm (3.3 ft) it is longer than any other species of parrot. It is the largest macaw and the largest flying parrot species.

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Most people come to the Pantanal in Brazil to see them as they are very easily found. You could also see them in far eastern Bolivia and slightly into northern Paraguay.

Hyacinth map

LEARN MORE ABOUT HYACINTH MACAWS

VIDEOS

Notice how the videographer approaches cautiously behind a tree? This is how you get closer to wild birds! The loud calls are unmistakeable.

Two gorgeous youngsters working up their courage to leave the nest!

Planning A Birding Trip To The Pantanal

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Tara

There are several ways you can organize your visit to the Pantanal. There are also two major gateway cities – Campo Grande in the south and Cuiaba in the north. It doesn’t really matter which gateway you choose as the wildlife is similar on either end and the Hyacinth Macaws are found in both areas. It will probably come down to which is more convenient to the rest of your trip. If you are including Cristalino near Alta Floresta then go with Cuiaba. If you are including Foz do Iguacu, then choose Campo Grande. You have a choice of flights (Gol, Azul, Tam or Avianca) or bus transportation either way. When we did our trip, Gol was a partner of American Airlines, now they partner with Delta. Tam is the current partner of American. Azul and Avianca Brazil partner with United.

You can save money and miles if you book your first flight from your home country to either Cuiaba or Campo Grande using these partners rather than booking just to Rio or Sao Paulo. Bus travel in Brazil ranges from the very basic to luxury “executivo” buses. If you want to do both areas – north & south, then I recommend taking the bus and booking a lodge along the Trans-Pantaniera so you can just hop out. You could also drive but check the drop off fees first.

Pantanal

THE THREE BASIC WAYS TO VISIT THE PANTANAL

Join a longer birding tour that includes the Pantanal and has a guide accompanying the group. This is the easiest option and also the most expensive. I can’t really recommend one tour over another as I am not the group tour type but you can start by googling “Pantanal Birding Tour”.
Book a package from a Brazilian tour operator that only includes the Pantanal component of the trip. We used Open Door Tur back in 2007 and were happy with the service. There are other local companies which can be found with a search but I don’t know enough about any of them to make a recommendation. This option is a nice compromise between budget and DIYing as you still get local birding guides and transport out to the lodge you will be staying at. This is the option we did during our first visit in July 2007 via Campo Grande to Caiman Ecological Refuge. I had also booked a day with the Arara Azul volunteers which took the place of the usual tourist activities and was the highlight of our trip!
DIY the whole thing. Book a rental car, book a lodge and drive yourself. The lodges will have guides available and you can make a day trip to places like Pousada Araras with a guide to show you the birds. This is what we did on our Sept 2012 trip. After calling several lodges and finding a few of them fully booked, we found the Curicaca Wildlife Refuge and booked in for a couple days and rented a car from Hertz in Cuiaba to drive ourselves out there. It wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be but we did end up with an excellent experience and saw lots of birds!

Of course detailed posts on all of the above will be forthcoming in this series!

Introduction To The Pantanal

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Tara

Over the next few weeks I will be doing a series on our historical travels to the Panatanal in Brazil. The first trip to the Pantanal was to the southern section accessed from Campo Grande and took place in July 2007. It was an organized 3 night 4 days tour staying at Caiman Ecological Refuge with a very special day spent with the volunteers of Projeto Arara Azul. I had posted about it on Feathered and Free shortly afterward so I do have information I would have otherwise struggled to remember!

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The second trip was to the northern section of the Pantanal accessed from Cuiaba and took place in 2012. This was a DIY trip using miles and points as much as possible and we drove ourselves part way down the Trans-Pantaniera in a rental car. Two completely different ways to experience the magnificent Pantanal!

Since I was concentrating on birds, I didn’t see many mammals so here’s a realy nice video I found on Youtube showing some amazing footage of jaguars, monkeys, capybaras and more! There are a few bird clips and a finale at Iguazu Falls at the end. So for today, relax and enjoy the video, then I will start showing you how to organize your own trip!

Quaker Parrot (Myiopsitta monachus)

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Tara

Quaker Parrots building a nest in the Pantanal, Brazil

Quaker Parrot, (Myiopsitta monachus) aka Monk Parakeets are native to the Pantanal in Brazil and northern Argentina.

Quaker Parrot Habitat

Self-sustaining feral populations have been recorded in several US states and various countries of Europe (namely Spain, Gibraltar, Italy, Great Britain and Belgium), as well as in Brazil, Israel, Bermuda, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico and Japan. As it is an open woodlands species, it adapts readily to urban areas.

In areas where they have been introduced, some fear that they will harm crops and native species. Evidence of harm caused by feral colonies is disputed, and many people oppose killing this charismatic bird. However, there have been local bans and eradication programs in some areas of the USA. Outside the USA, introduced populations do not appear to raise similar controversy, presumably because of smaller numbers of birds, or because their settlement in urban areas does not pose a threat to agricultural production. The UK appears to have changed its view on its feral populations and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is to remove Monk Parakeets from the wild,^[12] as it believes that they threaten local wildlife and crops.

WHERE TO SEE THEM

The easiest place to see them in their native habitat is the Pantanal, Brazil. It is also pretty easy to find them in the USA, especially Brooklyn, Edgewater and several cities in Florida.

AVIAN ARCHITECTS

They build some pretty amazing communal nests, here are some photos of them I took in the Pantanal, Brooklyn and Edgewater.

Although this is a pet Quaker, you can see the construction technique up close.

LEARN MORE ABOUT QUAKERS

WILD QUAKER PHOTOS

A few I took in the Pantanal and USA.

Bus Travel Between Mato Grosso & The Amazon

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Tara

Although flights on major routes can now be bought online at reasonable prices, there are times you will need to use the bus when moving from one eco-tourism hotspot to another. Let’s have a look at BR-163, the only route between Mato Grosso (Pantanal, Alta Floresta for Cristalino) and Itaituba (jumping off point for Amazonia National Park). I have highlighted in yellow these cities on the map below. The “A” shows the location of Guarantã do Norte which is the boarding point for the bus headed north to Itaituba or where you will change buses if heading in the opposite direction.

Mato Grosso to Itaituba

This route is operated by a bus company – Verde Transportes. Their website is only in Portuguese so I will walk you through how to use it to get information and possibly even book a ticket online. The online booking wasn’t open to foreigners last year when we were there so we bought all our tickets at their kiosk in the Cuiaba terminal. We took several buses: Cuiaba-Alta Floresta, Alta Floresta-Novo Sta Helena, Novo Sta Helena-Guarantã do Norte and finally the 20 hour bus trip to Itaituba. They take credit cards at the kiosk and can book all your tickets and issue them right there.

Somente Ida is “One way”.

You will be redirected to Net Viagem. You can see there is only one bus on the date I asked for that leaves at 20:00 (8pm) and it costs Brazilian Reis R$ 143.90 which is about $70 USD. Tick the radio button below “selecione” and hit “comprar”.

Net Viagem

You will see which seats are available. If they are accepting foreign credit cards, at this point choose a seat and hit “comprar”.

You won’t have an account so click the radio button with the red arrow, put your real email and make up a number for the CEP. Then hit “Prosseguir”.

It won’t like your fake CEP and you will see this screen. Hit “Fechar” to get rid of it.

Hit the “Foreign” radio button and you will get rid of the Brazilian fields and have more international fields to fill in. I made up some info for the screenshot, you would be putting in real info.

You will have 2 blue buttons to hit on the following screens and then you get a purchase screen.

Hit “sim” on this screen.

This is the final screen. Theoretically you should be able to pay with a Visa or Mastercard. I would suggest calling your bank to warn them to expect an online transaction from Brazil so they don’t think it’s fraud.

Hopefully you will have an e-ticket to print out and bring on the bus. Otherwise you will have to do as I did and buy the ticket there. I think you will have to do each leg of a multi-segment trip individually. Make sure there is availability on each leg before buying anything.

Here are some photos of our 3 leg journey from Alta Floresta to Itaituba. These are not the deluxe executive buses you see on the bigger routes but they are OK. At the time of our trip, the road wasn’t paved after Novo Progresso but this may change by the time you do your trip. The bus doesn’t have a toilet but will stop every few hours at a road side cafe where you can get food and use the facilities. None of the buses we took were full so we were able to grab a set of 2 seats each and spread out a bit. We managed to get a bit of sleep and arrived in Itaituba around 4pm. Actually the bus will drop you at the river (Miritaituba) and you take a ferry across which is free.