Pantanal Birthday Extension

January 13-16, 2020

My 50^th birthday celebration at Cristalino Jungle Lodge was just five nights, and when planning this whole thing I knew that for most of my friends that wouldn’t be enough time to warrant the long flights to and from Brazil. I also figured that while many would be perfectly capable of organizing their own add-ons (and some did before and after the trip), I could entice a few more to join the group if I organized something for them myself. So I planned a post-Cristalino extension to the Pantanal and Minas Gerais, capping it at 20 (including myself). The itinerary was planned to include some enticements for the non-birders in the group – especially mammals, but also the locations themselves. For my part, I was very interested in seeing these areas I know well in the middle of the rainy season, when bird numbers and their activities might be different than in the dry season, and when plant phenology is likely to be drastically different.

We had much of the first morning at Giuliano and Lisa’s Aymara Lodge. One highlight was this Tropical Screech-Owl in the garden which was tooting away unsolicited in the daylight hours (or maybe it heard my mobbing tape from a few hundred yards away and an hour earlier).

Someone also poked their head in the abandoned building that hasn’t yet been restored and found roosting bats. This one looks just like the ones we identified as Pallas’s Long-tongued Bat, Glossophaga soricina, on my tour a few years ago from just a bit farther south. The genus name means “tongue-eater,” and virtually all online photos are like this one, showing the tongue sticking out of the mouth as if they were in the midst of eating one.

By late morning we were headed south for the long drive to the end of the road at Porto Jofre. We did have time for a few roadside stops. These Greater Rhea were certainly a hit with the group.

Even the non-birders were impressed by this fabulous Scarlet-headed Blackbird.

Finally at the end of the road, we boarded our two boats to head upriver to our lodge for the next three nights. We were told it would be a minimum of 50 minutes, possibly up to 30 minutes longer if we made stops.

But wait – Tim left his spotting scope on the bank by the buses; good thing our driver Rogerio noticed!

Finally, after more than two hours, we arrived at Pousada Recanto do Jaguar, but shortly before arriving the lead boatman spotted a jaguar swimming across the river. Most of the group got to see it – but not everyone, and we never did see more than its head out of the water – all too soon it went up into some low overhanging willows and disappeared.

For the next two full days we took boat rides out into the Pantanal – on the Rio Tres Irmãos, Rio Cuiabá, and various tributaries and channels that connected the two.

Late on the first morning, we finally connected with our number one target: Panthera onca! This one was extremely cooperative, and we were able to spend more than 20 minutes with her. I was later able to find out from Paul Donahue that her name is Ibaca.

This freed us up to explore the region the rest of our stay, while also hoping for another jaguar. We passed by this huge Cocoi Heron heronry. When I come here on my tours, we don’t see them nesting, but then again I’d never been this far upriver.

This Rufescent Tiger-Heron was in just perfect light on the dock at the lodge.

This was the middle of the rainy season, and though it was still a few weeks away from the typically highest river levels, word was that the water was extremely low for this time of year. Perhaps that helped our chances for seeing jaguar, but we did not find another one on these boat rides. There was some nice thunderstorm action, in any event, making for beautiful skies. Take this incredible irisation above the cumulonimbus clouds.

We had great hosts during our stay. This is a low season for them, so I’m sure they were glad to have us in any event. This Junior, the super friendly bar tender, server, and general helper.

We got word from Giuliano that one of the rickety bridges that we would have cross on our return had been damaged by one of the many heavy trucks laden with cattle, as the ranchers were preparing for the upcoming high water levels by trucking them to higher ground. To fix it, a crew would be arriving at dawn the next day, dismantling and rebuilding it, taking all day. That would strand us here, causing us to miss our flight to Belo Horizonte! Later in the evening he came up with a plan: He negotiated with the crew to postpone their dismantling the bridge until 8:00 a.m. instead of 5:00 a.m. It would be about 3 1/2 hours travel time from our lodge, so we departed at 4:00 a.m. At one point, when Mich spotted eyeshine that clearly was not a caiman or potoo, he screamed for the boat to stop, and we had dim views of a very large Jaguar sitting on the bank well behind a curtain of foliage!

Apparently the bridge wasn’t so damaged that we couldn’t drive across it, which was a surprise to me (I thought we’d have to walk across, transferring our bags by hand to a waiting pair of new vans), but it did mean that we had to rush there, driving through some of the best birding in the Pantanal, without stopping, during the best time of day. We flushed dozens of all four species of cracids (Bare-faced Curassow, Chestnut-bellied Guan, Blue-throated Piping-Guan, and Chaco Chachalaca), hundreds of White-tipped Doves, and waved goodbye to all the Limpkins, Jabirus, and Southern Screamers along the roadside. One good catch was a White-headed Marsh-Tyrant by a bridge as we drove slowly across it. After crossing the damaged bridge, we had plenty of time for some stops in the middle stretches of the road, and at one stop we had Hook-billed Kite and a very rare Rufous-thighed Kite at the very same time.

A new passionflower for me was this Passiflora quadriglandulosa (with thanks to Yero Kuethe for the ID).

Also new for me was this spectacular milkweed vine, Schubertia grandiflora.

For the non-birders we added some nice mammals. This Marsh Deer, Blastocerus dichotomus, was cooperative.

On the entrance road to Aymara Lodge, where we returned for lunch, was this incredible Brazilian Tapir, Tapirus terrestris, unusual in being out in the open in the middle of the day. That it was unafraid of our vehicles a few feet away wasn’t so unusual.

At the lodge this Lesser Yellow-headed Vulture might have been inspecting the compost pile, or perhaps it had a nest in the nearby forest patch.

A Gray-headed Kite – our third “kite” (despite the name, they’re not closely related and probably just should have been named hawks) for the day was also a great find.

Finally, as we were finishing lunch, I heard a vaguely familiar sound in the trees overhead the dining room. There were a pair of Hyacinth Macaws getting all lovey-dovey with each other, oblivious to the crowd that was gathering below.

Finally, it was time return to Cuiabá for an early night to bed for tomorrow we would have a very early start. We made a stop to snap this Ringed Kingfisher just outside the van windows.

And of course there was the obligatory group photo at the Pantanal entrance sign.

Cristalino Birthday: Day 5 – To the Pantanal

January 12, 2020

This is the last morning at Cristalino Jungle Lodge for me and my remaining 31 friends who joined me for this half-century bash. Our departure isn’t until after 10:00 a.m., so while some chose to sleep in, pack, and hang out around the lodge clearing, I joined Gilmar and his group – which was now just Brad and Cindy – for a sunrise visit to Tower 2, named the Ted Parker Tower. This is one outing where hard-core birding groups usually get up later than general ecotourists – if you want to see the sunrise, you have to get there before birds are actually visible. Since Gilmar guides mostly non-birders, he scheduled us to depart well before it started getting light, and we hiked the kilometer by headlamp. The sunrise was gorgeous, worth the early start on its own, but we actually had some birds we would have missed with a typical birding arrival. As we got to the top, a pair of Short-tailed Nighthawks were calling close by, unseen. I whistled their staccato, slightly-upslurred note, and they circled us closely, but I never was able to get a glimpse against the dark canopy below. But looking above, the sky was getting light, and Brad spotted a nighthawk flying high – but this one was very high, making a beeline southward, and had the typical long, pointed wings of a Common Nighthawk, here on its wintering grounds.

As it got light, we delighted in lots of bird activity close to the tower, including Pompadour and Spangled Cotingas, toucans, aracaris, and parrots. One of the more surprising sightings was of a very young King Vulture perched in a distant tree, and we later learned that the group hiking to Serra 1 were on the trail below that bird and saw it as well. In this photo are a White-browed Purpletuft and two Short-billed Honeycreepers.

The light was also perfect for people watching on Tower 1.

As we gathered back at the lodge, we finished packing, put our bags out, signed the guest book, finalized our bar bills, and gradually gathered by the dock. But that took quite a while, and there was time to look for interesting things in the understory. This diurnal metalmark moth (family Choreutidae) is Ornarantia ophiodesma, rather common, but so small it’s often overlooked.

Steffen was looking for a reported turtle that walked away when he looked under a leaf and found this amazing caterpillar. It’s Parasa flora, a moth in the family Limacodidae.

Finally we were all together for this group photo. What an amazing group of people. I love you all.

The Brazilian guides were terrific, and I hope they had as much fun as the rest of us.

To the Pantanal: While all 32 of us flew from Alta Floresta to Cuiaba, we then split up a bit. Christoph went on to Curitiba and Iguazu, and 11 flew back to their respective homes. But 20 of us boarded two Mercedes Sprinters and began the 3-hour drive to the northern Pantanal for a 10-day extension that I organized with the help of my friends Giuliano and Lisa Bernardon of the travel company Birding Pantanal. They bought an old run-down lodge, fixed it up just this past year, renamed it Aymara, and we are among the first groups to stay here. We arrived after dark, and those on the left side of the first bus got to see an Ocelot on the entrance road to the lodge.

After we got a bit settled in and had dinner, most of us took a walk back down the entrance road hoping for some interesting mammals. We did see some Common Pauraques and heard plenty of frogs. This small Brazilian Orange-banded Tarantula, Acanthoscurria juruenicola, was on the side of the road.

For me the biggest thrill was finding this blooming cereoid cactus and then discovering that it smelled sweetly of ripe coconut! I’ve had it identified as Mirabella minensis, formerly Cereus mirabella.

Cristalino Birthday: Day 4

January 11, 2020

I can’t believe this is my last full day at Cristalino Jungle Lodge already. It thought it would be hard deciding what to do, but I hadn’t been with Rafael’s group in the morning yet, and I love going up to the Serra, so that’s where I spent the morning.

We had a bit of birding on our way there from the boat, including this raucous pair of Kawall's Parrots, distinctive with the lack of a white orbital ring and the white skin at the base of the bill.

We also saw this female Pompadour Cotinga from the boat – note the overall smooth gray color with a white iris.

On the way up the Serra we made sure to look at and smell this amazing orchid, Stanhopea candida, found by the group that came up here yesterday.

We perched on the highest granite dome for a while, hoping for a good mixed flock but none ever materialized. A flowering tree there was favored by this swallowtail, Battus crassus.

A common plant this time of year (completely absent in the dry season) is this sensitive plant, Mimosa skinneri.

We never did have a good mixed flock of tanagers, but we managed to work up one good mob with pygmy-owl imitations, seeing Black-bellied Thorntail and Gould’s Jewelfront. They were constantly buzzing around, so I didn’t get photos of them.

We descended the Serra early enough to take the Cacau trail, which leads back downriver, almost as far as the lodge (though on the opposite side). As we arrived at the start of the trail, our boatman Francisco was waiting for us, and also flagged down another passing boat to show us the poison dart frog he found while hiking back to the boat. This was once thought to be an undescribed species, but now is recognized as a local color morph of Adelphobates galactonotus. It is found only on the left bank of the Cristalino River, living on the granite domes.

A short ways down the trail I acted fast enough upon seeing a bit of movement in the trail to grab this tiny lizard, Loxopholis percarinatum. I’ve seen this microteiid (family Gymnophthalmidae) twice before here and once in Ecuador, and given how small and inconspicuous they are, I’d venture to say that it’s a very common and widespread species, even if you’ve probably never heard of it.

I didn’t even see this young Yellow-footed Tortoise (Chelonoidis denticulatus) right in the middle of the trail, having stepped right over it.

At lunchtime and during the break back at the lodge, I found this pair of Capybaras feeding by my cabin. I named them Frank and Betty, after two people I wish could have been here.

This Common Tent-making Bat (Uroderma bilobatum) was roosting in a new clump of Phenakospermum behind cabin 18. I had looked in the usual places around the staff clearing without finding any.

On the way back from lunch, a few of my friend had stopped to ogle this slug of larvae creeping along the ground. I knew they were sawfly larvae (a unique group of hymenopterans that don’t sting), later learning this is the genus Perreyia.

For the afternoon outing, I decided to do a fast walk all the way around Francisco’s Trail on my own, as I had never made a complete GPS track of it. At the start, I stopped to confirm that the Suriname Horned Frog (Ceratophrys cornuta) was still there!

I barely stopped for birds, but when I saw this turtle Platemys platycephala running in the trail, I had to stop for photos.

At nearly the same spot as the turtle I stopped at some activity in the canopy and caught sight of Dusky Titis, Callicebus moloch. The canopy was too dark for decent photos, but I’d never photographed this monkey before.

I led one last night walk. Our first good find was this Günther's Banded Tree Frog, Boana fasciata.

With a flutter suddenly in my face, I swiped out instinctively and lightning fast, and in my hand was this sphinx moth, Xylophanes chiron. When holding these, you have to be firm and not worry about what feels like a sting. They are very strong, can shed scales so as to be slippery, and the spines on their legs aren’t sharp enough to really hurt.

Just as instinctively, I didn’t reach out and grab this huge centipede, Scolopendra hermosa. The species in this genus in Arizona is known to have a very painful bite.

Best find of the walk was near the end – climbing vertically up a tree trunk next to the trail and about to enter a cavity was this Rainbow Boa, Epicrates cenchria. I gently lifted it off the tree and we quickly became BFF’s.

But eventually I had to reluctantly let it go.