White Sand Forest Birding

A singing Bright-rumped Attila was the first bird of the day as we walked to one of the pousada’s trails at 6am, followed by a pair of Guianan Warbling Antbirds and a Buff-throated Foliage-Gleaner beside the road. Walking up to the trail we stopped beside a large fruiting tree where several White-throated Manakins were feeding high up above us and we spent some time trying to improve on our views before entering the dark and gloomy trail. This was a little quiet and the only bird of note seen was a Double-banded Pygmy-Tyrant, so we returned to the lodge for a great breakfast during which we saw Buff-throated Saltator on the bird table, plus Mouse-coloured Tyrannulet, Sulphury Flycatcher, Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock, Spangled Cotinga, and the regular Grey-breasted Sabrewing at the feeder.

Yellow-crowned Manakin

Heading out to trails in the white sand forest this afternoon we saw Saffron-crested Tyrant-Manakin again before getting scorching views of Yellow-crowned Manakin. It was just a shame that the calling Pelzeln’s Tody-Tyrant didn’t appear again.  We tried the Capuchinbird arena but only heard it.  

So after lunch and a rest we tried again for the tody-tyrant without any joy before heading to the Capuchinbird stake-out, but only hearing it distantly once again. A close Spotted Puffbird was at least some form of compensation from our birdless walk so far! 

Spotted Puffbird

So we walked back to the lodge only for Pablo to say he was going to get some help from the lodge and make a path towards where the Capuchinbird was calling from and we were to continue birding. After some time he returned and said he’d found their newly relocated lekking area and if we wanted to see them then we would have to race back as the sun was setting beyond the horizon. So some of us dashed back through the forest and sure enough we did see several very weird-looking, but totally awesome Capuchinbirds overhead and heard their weird calls to round off the day.