Brazil; Arrozais de Tremembé

   A friend of Lias had found an active nest of a pair of Atlantic Royal Flycatchers in a park some two hours drive outside of Sao Paulo. With Lia’s working in the lab still being delayed by logistics we took a couple of days to travel over and see this very rare bird. In the end we decided to travel over the afternoon before, bird a nearby wetland and therefore not have to travel so far the subsequent morning to get to the park.

  The wetland we visited was the Arrozais de Tremembé, a network of rice fields and lagoons that we visited before. It has a great record of turning up rare species, so we were optimistic that there might be something interesting for us to see there. Alas, none of the species we had hoped for were available, but there was something equally unexpected; a blue Budgie, similar to smuggler from the autumn of 2016 at Spurn. It had taken up friendship with a large flock of White-eyed Parakeets and seemed to be doing well in their company.

  On the actual bird front we enjoyed some nice waterbirds. There was a single Southern Pochard on the lagoons, the only other time I have seen this species was the last time I visited this site. We also had two Comb Ducks fly low over us, which was a species found at this site we were hoping to see. The dry fields were filled with Grassland Yellow-Finches, I can’t ever remember seeing this many before, and there were ample wetland bird species such as Yellowish Pipit, Whistling Ducks and the common species of Herons.

-Budgerigar & White-eyed Parakeet 

-White-backed Stilt

-Comb Duck

Species List:
Arrozais de Tremembé: White-faced Whistling Duck, Fulvous Whistling Duck, Comb Duck, Muscovy Duck, Brazilian Teal, Southern Pochard, Feral Pigeon, Picazuro Pigeon, Ruddy Ground Dove, Eared Dove, Guira Cuckoo, Striped Cuckoo, Sick's Swift, Ash-throated Crake, Common Gallinule, White-backed Stilt, Southern Lapwing, Anhinga, Neotropic Cormorant, Pinnated Bittern, Cocoi Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Western Cattle Egret, Whistling Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, Bare-faced Ibis, Black Vulture, Crested Caracara, White-eyed Parakeet, Band-tailed Hornero, Yellow-chinned Spinetail, Common Tody-Flycatcher, Yellow-bellied Elaenia, White-rumped Monjita, White-headed Marsh Tyrant, Masked Water Tyrant, Cattle Tyrant, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, Southern Rough-winged Swallow, White-rumped Swallow, House Wren, Common Waxbill, House Sparrow, Yellowish Pipit, White-browed Blackbird, Shiny Cowbird, Grassland Yellow Finch, Blue-black Grassquit, Capybara, Coypu,