The really hot, dry season is well underway and the birdlife is changing accordingly. Tinamous have become much more vocal and I got a great look at a Great Tinamou as it drank from the river. The first Neotropic Cormorants have arrived, as have the Blue-black Grassquits atop the serra, and the Teles Pires held a nice flock of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, with an ultra-rare Paint-billed Crake being found there by another guide. A Southern Tamandua, my first of the season, feeding right by the restaurant at 5am provided some excitement but my best observation of the past ten days came on the last morning of a lovely Swiss family I had the pleasure of guiding. We were up the tower enjoying the Grey-breasted Martins flying all around us when I noticed them converge on another bird that was approaching fast. It was only as the intruder flew right past us at eye level that I realised it was a Tiny Hawk, which I've only seen once before!
