Day 2 at Cristalino Jungle Lodge – Birding the River, Forest Trails, and the Secret Garden

August 5, 2015

We started early today as usual (5:00 a.m. breakfasts are the rule here), but we didn’t set out immediately for any trails or the river – we birded from the floating deck for a while, and this Gray-necked Wood-Rail was our reward. It’s a common bird, and one we’ll see easily in the Pantanal, but it’s always nice to see one here on the Cristalino.

We then set out for a trail upriver, but I planned to make stops for any birds and wildlife we might see along the way – there’s no rush to get to a dark forest rail first thing in the morning. Just a few hundred meters upriver from the lodge was one of the group’s most wanted bird, Sunbittern.

We watched it pace back and forth on some rocks in the river for at least 10 minutes before we got a good view of it in flight. I managed to get one blurry shot that shows the stunning wing pattern.

We also stopped for a Red-throated Piping-Guan on a rock, which was soon joined by a second bird.

We then walked a forest trail for the rest of the bulk of the morning.

It’s hard work to get good views of birds high in the trees, but we did see some great ones. In any event, there’s always lots of other things to look at. What looks like a black scab on a dead branch is actually a mushroom, or perhaps more correctly a compound mushroom in the genus Camillea.

This looks like a clearwing butterfly but is actually a metalmark mimicking one, Ithomeis aurantiaca.

We watched this Passiflora cf. tholozanii for a little bit, but no hummers came in to it during our stay. When I was here in June three years ago, there was a lek of Great-billed Hermits in this same spot.

This amazing, huge wasp nest was very high in a tree.

The best find along this trail was an Ocellated Poorwill that I flushed when I stepped a few meters off the main trail to try to see a large woodpecker that was hammering away in a big tree but masked from every perspective by the mid-story vegetation. I saw the bird briefly as it flew off, and looked down to find these two eggs right next to my foot.

When we returned about ½ hour later, the bird had returned, but I had real difficulty finding it while looking from the main trail even though I knew where to look. Once I spotted it, I looked away and tried to describe its location, and suddenly I couldn’t find it again. What a master of camouflage! As for the quetzal yesterday, I put my camera on my tripod and used a full 1-second exposure to get this photo.

I did not take much of a break after lunch. It’s hot – in the upper 90’s°F – but that’s when many butterflies are most readily found. This amazing hairstreak Arcas imperialis was right behind the leaders’ dorm.

This skipper Jemedia hospita was in front of the dorm door.

Yet another eighty-eight, this Callicore texa was roosting by the restaurant.

This is Melanis electron, Electron Pixie, a metalmark.

A couple of us took a mid-afternoon walk down a trail, which can be very quiet, but we surprised a group of Spix's Guans in the dense bamboo by the trail.

We also had a cooperative group of White-whiskered Spider Monkeys in the fruiting fig trees.

The whole group then gathered for a late afternoon vigil in the open habitat of the Secret Garden, where we had great views of Golden-winged Parakeet, Yellow-browed Tody-Flycatcher, Gray-crowned Flycatcher and others. I got a photo of small scrub-hairstreak which I later identified as Strymon astyocha.

Then there are the fun things that show up at the common area, where the bar, restaurant, and library are located. A young birder and his father from Israel arrived today and showed me this silk moth, Rhescyntis sp., that came to one of the lights.

This hawkmoth Pachylia ficus was roosting on the ceiling in the restaurant.

The excitement of the evening was my catching this Long-furred Mouse-Opossum, Micourea demararae, which had taken up a roost behind the small refrigerator behind the bar. Everyone gathered around to look at it before I let it go about 50 meters down the trail into the forest. Little did I know that it actually wanted to be in the bar – a reliable source of water during this very dry time of year. The bartender João Paulo told me it came back an hour later!

Our First Full Day at Cristalino – Tower II, Francisco’s Bird Bath, Bugs, and Bats

August 4, 2015

We have our five full days here at Cristalino Jungle Lodge planned out, morning and afternoon outings written down on the white board in the leaders office in order to not overlap with the many other tourists here. This is our morning on Tower II, the one completed in early 2011.

We had a fun morning here, with great views of Spangled Cotinga, Paradise Tanager, Kawall’s Parrot perched close, a fabulous close troop of Curl-crested Aracaris, and a chance to look down on a Dwarf Tyrant-Manakin. The only birds close enough and in the most perfect light for my camera were these courtship-feeding Blue-headed Parrots.

We birded the 900-meter (0.6-mile) trail back to the lodge, where this most cooperative of all Pavonine Quetzals perched not too high for several minutes. There’s very little light in the forest understory, so I actually had time to switch my camera to my tripod (changing the metal plate from the scope), and configure it to a low ISO and very slow shutter speed with a timer on the shutter release.

When we got back to the lodge, it was time to take a look at the butterflies on the beach. A wonderful puddle party of sulphurs and many others had gathered.

This is one of the several kinds of eighty-eights, Diaethria clymena.

The gorgeous Doxocopa zunilda, Zunilda Emperor.

Then just a short ways down the path was this handsome Yellow-footed Tortoise, Chelonoidis denticulata, the first I’ve seen here in a while. Apparently it’s been hanging around here for a few days.

During the break after lunch, I spotted these apparent dog-like bats, Cynomops sp., roosting in the little telephone house.

I then checked the Phenakospermum by the old kitchen and found these Uroderma  sp. tent-making fruit bats right where I had left them last year.

I also walked down the Taboca trail on my own, wanting to see the destruction from a microburst that felled a big swath of forest last September. The damage was amazing, but it holds promise for all the birds and animals that need that kind of disturbance. I saw lots of butterflies but taking pictures only a few. This Calycopis sp. hairstreak may never be identifiable to genus.

This metalmark is probably Euselasia hygenius, typically landing upside down under a leaf.

A very common metalmark along many of the trails at Cristalino is the lovely Semomesia croesus.

In the afternoon we went to Francisco’s bird bath a hundred meters into the igapó forest downstream, and we saw some great birds – but too dark and too fast to get photos. They included the recently split Xingu Scale-backed Antbird and a pair of local Bare-eyed Antbirds, among several others. While we were sitting and standing very quietly behind a palm-leaf screen in the coming evening darkness, a heard the heavy buzzing of a crepuscular skipper darting around the group. I quickly placed a white tissue spit was on a vine behind me, and in landed this ruby-eye skipper, Thracides cleanthes.

Finally, we did a short night walk to the secret garden, first looking at the lights along the pathway to the restaurant. This is where I found this ghost moth in the family Hepialidae, a very primitive and relatively small family. This one has been identified as Phialuse palmar. John Grehan has an amazing website on the family at http://johngrehan.net/index.php/hepialidae/.

This is a tailless whipscorpion, an arachnid of a different order than spiders or scorpions, one I never fail to see on the trails here.

This ichneumonid wasp (notice the very long ovipositor) was sleeping on the side of a tree.

We also saw the Azara’s Night Monkeys a couple of times, and while looking for a very close Tawny-bellied Screech-Owl (which we never saw), I spotted this unknown bat hanging by one foot very high in a tree. It’s probably a fruit bat, next to a fig tree that is just becoming ripe, but the super high ISO setting erases many details that would be needed. I thought the distinctive hooded color might give it away and am still hopeful I might eventually get a name for it.

First Day Back At Cristalino Jungle Lodge

August 2-3, 2015

Here is the view as we arrived in Alta Floresta. Forty-five years ago, when I was born, this was all still pristine Amazonian rainforest. Ranchers, settlers, and above all gold miners were encouraged by the Brazilian government to transform it beyond recognition. But this is progress.

We had one night in the Floresta Amazonica hotel where we saw a few species that area harder at Cristalino, including Cinnamon-throated Woodcreeper and Crimson-bellied Parakeet. Amazingly, the introduced Tropical House Gecko has made it all the way out here.

We started early on our transfer to Cristalino Jungle Lodge to bird the open country and the forest on this (the west) side of the Teles Pires River.  The open country allows us to see more widespread species well without having to strain our necks, as exemplified by this close Yellow-crowned Tyrannulet, a bird we would just hear while in the forest understory.

A fun surprise was this White Hawk (Black-tailed hawk when they get around to splitting it) , next to the road.

Once we were nearly to the contiguous rainforest, we stopped for a King Vulture, who was accompanied by Black Vultures, followed by this rarely seen Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle.

Some scat from an unknown mammal on the roadside attracted this sister, Adelpha capucinus.

We did some birding on the lodge grounds once we arrived, but  even before we got to the common area, we were distracted by the abundant butterflies. This Ruddy Daggerwing was perched right y the boardwalk to the floating deck.

I couldn’t resist taking a night walk our first evening. Just by the guide dorms was a underground colony of termites which emerge from a tiny hole in the ground only at night and dismantle dried leaves and twigs for their nest. I imagine they have a pretty complex nest below the ground surface.

Chapada dos Guimarães

July 31-August 2, 2015

My group of seven participants arrived on July 30, and on the 31^st we set out for 15 days of amazing  birding and natural history in the marvelous state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. We started with some productive birding in the mid-day heat at some ponds in the dry woodlands north of Cuiabá where there were many White-faced and Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, Brazilian Teal, and an Anhinga.

But our real birding began the next morning with a full day at Chapada dos Guimarães National Park.

This Burrowing Owl greeted us in the short, scrubby woodland that harbors several special species.

We flushed several Coal-crested Finches soon thereafter, but this flat-headed Southern Caracara was the only bird there that stood for a photo.

We gradually picked up most of the specialties of this habitat, including the Chapada Flycatcher, White-banded Tanager, and this loud duetting White-rumped Tanager.

I hope for but never expect Collared Crescentchest, let alone one that sits up so boldly like this one.

We had the late morning at our lodge, where this Chalk-browed Mockingbird fed on a fallen papaya.

This carpenter bee-like insect inspected my tripod by the dining area. I suspect it is indeed a carpenter bee.

White-eyed Parakeets were seen in large flocks flying over in all areas and at all time of day, but we were lucky to have a pair of them perched close by at one point.

We tend to ignore Southern Rough-winged Swallow after seeing a dozen of them, but when one perched nearby so boldly, I couldn’t resist a photo. The yellowish belly, tawny throat, and the pale rump are some of the features that distinguish this species from Northern Rough-winged Swallow.

The adorable Brown Jacamar is a scarce bird anywhere, but there’s usually a family group or two at our lodge Pousada do Parque.

A flowering shrub along the lodge’s entrance drive was particularly attractive to many butterflies, and I eventually identified this one as a Eueides vibilia (Vibilia Longwing), first assuming it was a crescent that was mimicking a longwing.

While looking for more butterflies, I looked down near the ground to see some movement, which I slowly recognized as a snake. This probable Chironius sp. (a very confusing genus), was probably hunting lizards in the late morning heat.

We had lunch at one of the national park’s most visited sites, the Cachoeira do Véu de Noiva. This translates to the painfully trite Bridal Veil Falls.

In the late afternoon we drove to another part of the national park surrounded by cotton fields, and the fallow fields here are home to some large and very attractive birds. Greater Rheas were not shy here.

And we  had several Red-legged Seriemas walking without much concern near the road. These strange birds seem to be a cross between a bustard and a secretary-bird, but are really nothing like either. There are two species in the entire family and order (Cariamiformes), both found only in South America.

On the way back, a grass fire by the roadside had attracted this Aplomado Falcon.

And this Savanna Hawk was drawn to the abundant food near the flames.

This view from the edge of the mesa is known as the Centro Geodesico – it’s very close to the geodetic center of South America.

From here we fly to Alta Floresta for a week at Cristalino Jungle Lodge. I can’t wait! Here’s our view of the Chapada dos Guimarães landscape not long after taking off from Cuiabá.