Stephen's law strikes again!

Well, I made it back to Brussels after 24 hours of travelling, although my bag missed the connection in São Paulo and took a further 48 hours to reach me!  Back in 2013, each of the guides had a 'law' named after us, mine being that every guide sees something fantastic right at the very end of their stay.  My last week at the lodge was, however, rather underwhelming although another guide did help me to finally connect with my first Snethlage's Tody-tyrant, my 8th lifer of the season, on the other side of the Teles Pires, where it is fairly common but I rarely got to spend any amount of time.  I was guiding right up until my departure and took my last guests down to the Teles Pires for a final sunset, seeing two Lesser Nighthawks and a Black-backed Water-Tyrant on one of the river islands.  Both of these are very rare, and the former is not even on the Alta Floresta list, although they are both known to turn up there occasionally on migration.  On my last morning, I walked around the grounds of the Floresta Amazonica Hotel pre-breakfast, and then decided to have one last look after breakfast before packing my binoculars away.  Glimpsing a macaw before it landed out of sight, I instantly felt it was somehow different.  Sure enough, as I managed to locate it amongst the leaves it started calling much more deeply than any of the other local macaws, and I soon realised I was looking at a Hyacinth Macaw, which is extremely rare away from the Pantanal.  I even managed a couple of record shots, where you can just about make out the colouration and the distinctive yellow eye-ring.

Brazilian summer part 10

It's funny how the cookie crumbles.  My last group got to see four tapirs in two days, including a mother and her stripey calf, whereas my previous group didn't see any at all.  The crake story took an unexpected twist when a guide looking for the grey-breasted discovered a paint-billed crake instead, in exactly the same place!  This bird is much rarer with just two previous records in the region and thus became my 7th lifer of the season so far.  The Gould's Jewelfront nest now contains two little beaks and I just discovered a Yellow-browed Tody-Flycatcher building a nest right outside my room.  I've only six more days left in the Amazon, then its back to Brussels, for now at least.

Brazilian summer part 9

I've been guiding a three-time Olympic medalist and his family the past few days and they got to see some great stuff, including Lesser Anteater, Collared Peccary, a sloth, plus four species of monkey.  The undoubted bird highlight of the past week or so was a Grey-breasted Crake running around in the open near the floating deck.  I'd only ever heard this bird here as it is normally extremely elusive and always hiding in long grass.  A male Purple-throated Cotinga was also nice and a chick successfully hatched in the Gould's Jewelfront nest.  It has gotten extremely hot and sticky in anticipation of the first rain, which must surely come any day now.

Brazilian summer part 8

Nossa!  No sooner I had written that there was very little bird news to tell than another guide went and found an occupied nest of the ultra-rare Gould's Jewelfront hummingbird right in the staff clearing! I've seen both Great and Grey Tinamou the past week, and I finally got to visit the magic pond, which long-standing readers of my blog should well remember from my first year here. Around 25 bird species came in to drink or bathe, with the Long-Tailed Potoo making its expected appearance as darkness fell. The mammals still got the upper hand, however, as, while we were waiting for the potoo, none other than my first Giant Anteater came in and took a bath!