It’s now early January 2008, I’ve got a few weeks free from guiding work, my next group will arrive after the summer heat has peaked towards the end of February. It’s now around 38 degrees centigrade in the shade over the greater part of eastern Brazil. Birding hours become confined to early morning and the late afternoon periods although I am noting increasing activity during the early afternoon around my and my neighbour’s birdbaths. Regular visitors to this amenity are Tropical Parula Warbler and Blue Dacnis and we are also seeing Orange–headed Tanager, Red-legged Honeycreeper (female pictured) and occasionally even Yellow-eared Woodpecker taking baths over this, the hottest part of the day.
Planned for mid-month, I’ll be off on a research trip to Southern Bahia State, and the idea is to spend up to 14days getting to know two or three key Forest reserves in the extreme South of this area that will form the Northern Limit of the SOUTH-EASTERN BRAZIL area that I will be offering as future birding destinations. Most of the localities are situated close to the coast and near Porto Seguro. On the drive up to Bahia I plan to make time to visit a Marine Turtle beach near Linhares, Espirito Santo state. I’ve regularly passed by the turn-off to this locality but never before had a day spare to explore it closer, hopefully I can also plan a night with a full moon, always best for Turtles coming up the beach to lay?
During my rest period I’m updating my digital birdsong archives (a rather time-consuming process) whilst also managing to get a period of building work completed on the Marica Lodge.
I’ve also joined the EXCELLENT www.xeno-canto.org website as a member and contributed two new species voices (Maroon faced Parakeet and Ochre-marked Parakeet), both recorded recently on a visit to the CVRD Linhares reserve and unfeatured on the website before my contribution.
My last guiding trip helped my client top the 1000 new species in a calendar year ! I happened to be the last trip in this world-birders year, in which he saw 1031 species for the first time, I managed to provide 131 lifers in his 7night/8day visit. It felt good to be playing a part in this amazing feat! Cheers Bill and next visit we will try and make time to visit the interior of Brazil for the Merganzer & mabe a Giant Anteater or two !