Tapirs and Caiman on the Rio Cristalino

July 2019: A Short Stay at the Legendary Rio Cristalino Lodge in Mato Grosso

Back in 1995, I went to Brazil for the first time.  I flew to São Paulo, changed planes and flew on to Cuiaba, then spent a week birding in the Pantanal and in the nearby cerado habitat.  It was a low budget trip, we stayed in very basic accommodation and I could only afford to take part in the first week of what for others was a two week trip.  I saw 273 species of birds, most of them new for me, and I saw my first Giant River Otters and Giant Anteaters.  Despite the trip being so short I was quite simply entranced with the country and figured that I'd be back.  Indeed, since that trip I've made more than a dozen trips to Brazil, ten of them specifically for birding.

After I left Brazil that first time, the group of birders I was with went on to Alta Floresta and spent a week at the Rio Cristalino Jungle Lodge, where they saw a ton more birds and several Brazilian Tapirs.  Not to worry I thought, I'll probably get there before too long ... then 24 years passed by in a flash ... and I never did get round to going Rio Cristalino (and never saw a tapir of any sort).

In the meantime, two of my good birding friends, Carlos Sanchez and Rich Hoyer, both worked as guides at the Cristalino so I kept being reminded that I really ought to go, and yet somehow I just couldn't get organized to fit a visit into my schedule.  I knew it would happen someday though and it turns out that 2019 was the lucky year.  This year my Summer unexpectedly opened up and I decided to expand a long-planned  NorthEast Brazil trip,  grabbing the opportunity, and a room at the lodge at short notice.  Game on ...

Sunday, June 23 - Thursday, June 27 - Cristalino Jungle Lodge

A long travel weekend.  On Saturday I'd flown from New York to Bogotá and then on to São Paulo (sacrificing time for a cheap business class seat on Avianca).  I'd spent Saturday night at the airport Marriott at Guarulhos then taken an early Sunday morning flight to Cuiaba and, despite a delay, just made a connecting flight to Alta Floresta.  From there, my fellow lodge guests and I were met and driven an hour or so to a boat, then had a nice quick ride up the river to the lodge.  Made it ... finally.

Once we got oriented I, and two fellow birders who I did not know beforehand, got assigned a birding guide.  I wasn't thrilled to be lumped with other birders who, although they turned out to be delightful people and charming company, didn't initially strike me as 'hard core' birders.  However, I was happy to be assigned Sidnei Dantas as a guide ... another talented young ornithologist and a good friend of a friend.  And everything worked out in the end.

Pompadour Continga 

Once settled in, the routine for the next few days was set.  Up before dawn for a delicious breakfast, birding until lunch time, a huge and scrumptious Brazilian meal for lunch, siesta, more birding in the later afternoon until just after dark, shower, bar time, more mouthwatering Brazilian food for dinner, then collapse into bed.  I would quite happily spend the rest of my life doing exactly just that, at least in a place like Cristalino with amazing food, a great wine list, and awesome birds.  Perhaps the perfect vacation and so very different from the logging camp I'd stayed in the last time I made it to the Amazon.

A Pai da Mata made with fresh local herbs.  The lodge had a full bar and a good
wine list ... I only allow myself one cocktail every now and then, this was the one
and it was worth it.

Over the next 4 days we birded steadily and accumulated a list of nearly 250 species (or put another way, more species than I saw in the UK during the entirety of my childhood).  Of these, around 30 were lifers for me, nothing super rare, but some good birds.

Red-throated Piping Guan

Perhaps the best birds we saw were some local forest specialties like Alta Floresta Antpitta along with a good selection of antbirds, antshrikes, antwrens, woodcreepers, foliage-gleaners, and the many other mixed flock species from the forest interior.   Some of the ant swarms we saw were quite active and we were able to get to grips with a few ant-followers like Bare-eyed Antbird (although no ground-cuckoos unfortunately) plus there was always the comedic relief (for others) of seeing me high-stepping down the trail to get through a swarm of angry ants (army ants are one of the few things on earth that can persuade me to break into a brief run).

The time on the trails was mixed in with quite civilized boat rides along the rivers.  The birds here weren't quite so special but there were lots of big, photogenic things to keep us interested.  On the big charismatic bird front, I also finally caught up with Razor-billed Curasow, an amazing cracid that I'd long wanted to see.

Hoatzin and Sunbittern

Beyond the river-bank birds, the boat trips offered the best chances for other types of life and we did manage to see quite a few good things.  Spectacled Caiman were not uncommon on the river but one night we also managed to spot-light a Cuvier's Dwarf-Caiman in the fading light, a life crocodilian for me. These small heavily armored little crocs have large numbers of bony plates in their skin, which has protected them from the handbag trade, although being small and shy they are still rarely seen.

Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman

On the mammal front we did see five species of primate - including Red-handed Howler Monkey, Red-nosed Bearded Saki-Monkey, and White-whiskered Spider-Monkey - two species of peccary, some bats,  and several Neotropical River Otters (who doesn't love encounters with otters?).

Neotropical River Otter

The absolute highlight of the trip for me though came one morning as we motored upstream in the boat and I noticed a large brown lump in the morning mist a few hundred yards ahead of us.  I couldn't quite make out what it was but my brain slowly processed the shape and saw that it was moving ... it looked a bit like a horse.  I got my bins on it as it sank low into the water so I could just see the top of it's head and ears ... and it raised it's trunk (!).   "Anta!" I shouted.  One of the few moments where I actually remembered the Portuguese word for an animal but couldn't for the life of me remember the English word.  So I kept shouting "Anta! Anta!" and gave directions as best I could as the Brazilian Tapir made it's way to the river bank and vanished into the dense undergrowth.  Finally my first tapir, after many, many years of wanting to see one.  I was ecstatic but had to quickly reign in my excitement when I realized that, while the guide and the boatman had both seen the animal, my American birding companions had somehow managed to miss it.  Guilty feelings all around ...  but I was quietly smiling to myself for the rest of the day.

Gray-headed Kite

By contrast, the best bird of the week was one that we never saw.  The others had opted to take an afternoon off so Sidnei and I were happily off up a trail working an ant-swarm and hoping for ground-cuckoos when he pointed out a distinctive trill.  The bird was loud and close but we couldn't see it, and it did sound awfully familiar.  Sidnei's theory was that it was a Peruvian Recurvebill,  a very good bird for this location and one rarely seen here in recent years.  Playing a recording confirmed the ID but, although we worked on it for quite a while, we never did get a glimpse.  Such is forest birding unfortunately, but still a good record.

Great Black Hawk

Night walks were also a great experience, being out in the forest after dark is always a treat.  Although we didn't see any large nocturnal mammals we did see lots of nightjars of several species, a Great Potoo and several owls.  Then there were always the cool smaller things like trapdoor spiders and whip-scorpions to make the night interesting, or odd tree-frogs, bats, spiny-rats, centipedes and giant crickets.  A great variety of life right outside our doors.

Blackish Nightjar roosting on one of the cabins

On the last full day, for a change of scenery, we went down to the main river and birded some of the sand islands there.  Pied Lapwings really do look a lot like Egyptian Plovers (I can say that now that I've seen the plover) and we spent a fair amount of time attempting to lure a Glossy Antshrike within range of the camera.  This was the place we were told to look out for Harpy Eagles but alas, none came to see us, although we did see two different Ornate Hawk-Eagles during our stay there.  Next time ... for me with Harpy Eagle, it's always next time ...

Pied Lapwing and Glossy Antshrike 

All too soon though it was time for me to head back to the real world.  I really could have stayed at least an extra few days but my plans were set, so back to Alta Floresta then Cuiaba and on to São Paulo.  I did bring a souvenir with me though ... on the flight to Cuiaba my ankles and lower legs were itching uncontrollably, and it only got worse during the day ... Chiggers!  Not my favorite invertebrate and I had 'gotten them good' so for the entire duration of my stay in São Paulo I had something to remember the Amazon.  Still, it was worth it, and I'm already plotting my next trip to the Amazon ....

Ghana (Part 2) - Mole National Park and Egyptian Plovers

January 2019: A Few Days in the Dry Habitats of Northern Ghana

Wednesday, January 2 - White Volta River, Central Ghana

With Picathartes in the bag, my second big target for this trip was the fabled EGYPTIAN PLOVER otherwise known as the Crocodile Plover.  As a kid I had read about this bird and it's life-risking habit of walking inside the mouths of basking Nile Crocodiles to pick scraps from between their teeth.  This 'fact' had been taught to generations of British school children and was firmly welded in my imagination as one of the most quintessential of African nature phenomena.  I'd wanted to see this bird since I was a small child.  Even finding out that the crocodile story was completely untrue hadn't dampened my enthusiasm for seeing this species.  So today was largely devoted to a very long, and very dusty drive to look for the plovers.

Distant scope views

Our target was a river crossing on the White Volta River, and despite the bridge being long collapsed, the scruffy settlement that surrounded what was now a canoe crossing did seem to be a hive of activity.  The plovers were supposed to frequent a sand bank in the river and when we arrived my heart sank as the sand bank was crowded with villagers and their laundry.  Surely the plovers wouldn't be there but we walked out anyway and scanned the surrounding rocky shores with the scope hoping for, and getting, distant views of the plover upstream.

My best photo of the Egyptian Plover

Now that we'd seen the birds and relaxed, their birds seemed to realize that they'd been spotted and so gave up on hiding and flew directly towards us, landing on the sand bank close enough for decent photos.  A truly special bird, and worth the long drive on terrible roads, and the pounds of dust that I breathed in during the day.  The happy memory carried me forward through another long and dusty drive on equally bad roads in the afternoon until we reached our final destination in Ghana, Mole National Park.

Thursday, January 3 to Saturday, January 5 - Mole National Park

When I booked this trip I had a vague recollection of the folks at Rockjumper offering me a choice of accommodation at Mole NP.  There was either a budget "motel", or a much more expensive "lodge", and feeling flush in the moment I opted for a little luxury and booked the lodge.  I still had fairly low expectations however so when we arrived at Zaina Lodge I was in for a big surprise.  Zaina is a full-on luxury game lodge of the type more typically found in East Africa or South Africa.  In fact it's first and the only lodge of it's type in West Africa.  It was a really very, very nice place to stay - superb accommodations, great food, and beautifully situated - and put us right in the middle of the birds and other wildlife.  I couldn't have been happier with my choice after that long and dusty driving day.

The entrance to Zaina and the pool / bar.

My "tent" at Zaina came complete with a real bathroom and room-sized shower (with hot water)

For the next three days we birded the various trails and tracks around the lodge and ventured further afield into the park.  Mole consists largely of dry "miombo" woodland which looks a lot like the classic TV nature show version of Africa and indeed I had a hard time distinguishing it from the habitat I'd birded in Kenya or South Africa.  It all looked very familiar, with the exception of course of the birds, and I had a ton on new birds.

Senegal Thick-knee and Gray Kestrel

Mole is far from a pristine wilderness, and has suffered some severe hunting pressure.  The park used to be famous for a very tame pride of Lions which fell victim to poaching some years ago, and other predators, Leopards, Hyenas and the like are all very scarce.  Nevertheless, we were required to take an armed scout with us if we wanted to get out of the car, Elephants are still present and can still create some risk for birders.  

Swamp Flycatcher and Gray-headed Kingfisher

Among the star birds that we looked for at Mole were some that specialized in dry, rocky plains that we criss-crossed in the lodge's Toyota Landcruisers until we bumped into them.  Sun Larks were easy to find but it took us many hours before we finally tacked down FORBES'S PLOVER, a very odd looking shorebird.

Forbes's Plover and Chestnut-backed Sparrow-Lark

Night birding was also very productive with numerous Long-tailed Nightjars and a Grayish Eagle-Owls along the tracks after dark.  Dusk also produced a bird that I had long wanted to see when I noticed what seemed to be a nightjar hawking over the grasslands with two small birds mobbing it (?).  That didn't make sense, small birds don't mob nightjars so bins up and it turns out to be a hawking STANDARD-WINGED NIGHTJAR, a truly amazing looking creature with outsized ornamental flight feathers almost as large as the bird itself.  I leapt out of the car for photos and was almost immediately overwhelmed by swarms of large and super aggressive biting flies.  It was literally impossible to stay long enough even to take a single photo and we ran straight back to the car.  Fifteen minutes later when the sun set, the files had vanished, but by then so had the nightjar, so you'll just have to imagine how awesome it was.

Long-tailed Nightjar and Dusky Eagle-Owl

There were also some other special birds that popped up, like my first SPOTTED CREEPER, Stone Partridges, the scarce WHITE-THROATED FRANCOLIN and the local GOSLING'S BUNTING.

Spotted Creeper and White-throated Francolin

There were mammals too of course, although not in the variety that you might see in East or South Africa.  There were Uganda Kob, Bushbuck, Waterbuck, Warthogs, and Olive Baboons.  There were also some smaller things that were memorable, like a group of Gambian Fruit-Bats that we flushed accidentally from some thorn trees one morning.  Then of course there was the star of the park, the African Bush Elephant, and while we only saw one, it was good to know that they were still there.

Uganda Kob and Waterbuck

African Bush Elephant

And finally of course there were a few reptiles, what trip to Africa is complete without a crocodile?  We saw a few crocodiles and I assumed they were Nile Crocodiles until I got home and realized that Slender-snouted and Dwarf Crocodiles can also be found at Mole.  So I have to leave them as crocodile sp. and wish I'd taken the time to take some photos.  The last interesting animal of the visit though was crossing the road as we were leaving on the last morning, a chameleon that I helped onto a stick and moved safely to some roadside bushes.  iNaturalist later identified it as Senegal Chameleon, a lifer for me obviously and a great way to end the trip.

Senegal Chameleon

West Africa, I'll be back.

Finding Vagrants in Hong Kong

October 2018: An Epic Day if Birding at Mai Po and other Hong Kong Wetlands

Sunday, October 14

October 2018 got a little confused - I had had an October trip planned to Asia for months and was looking forward to trying for Mountain Peacock-Pheasants in Malaysia and for Whiskered Pitta in the Philippines.  Then, just weeks before I was due to leave, the trip got cancelled and I had to try to un-book the travel arrangements.  No sooner had I said my apologies though, and cancelled all the ground arrangements for the trip, than I got word that schedules had changed again and that I was indeed free to go to Asia if I wanted!  It was too late to save the Malaysia part of the itinerary, but I was able to resurrect the Philippines trip (more later) and had a single spare day in Hong Kong so reached out to birding friend and local bird guru John Allcock to make plans for a day of birding, including a visit to the fabled Mai Po reserve.

So super early, up and out of the hotel and off to the New Territories to meet John.  First stop was a woodland trail at Shek Kong which, given the date, we hoped would be crawling with interesting migrants.  It wasn't.  In fact it was pretty dead bird-wise, but oh well, never mind, and on to the next spot.

Kam Tin is not the most scenic birding area on earth.  A muddy storm drain full of discarded tires and shopping carts surrounded by concrete banks and overpasses.  It is a wetland though and so draws lots of wetland birds with a good selection of shorebirds and egrets spread up and down the muddy channel.  Our target here was the scarce and declining Gray-headed Lapwing, a lifer for me and a bird I'd looked for unsuccessfully at this site the previous year.  We got out of the car, I scanned the channel, picking up a good selection of birds but no lapwings, but thankfully John was more thorough and picked out a pair in the distance.  So, a life bird, and the day was starting to look up.

Gray-headed Lapwings in scenic surroundings.

Up next was another site I'd birded before, the farm fields and paddies of Long Valley.  Our goal here was to look for scarcer buntings amongst Yellow-breasted Buntings in the dry rice fields and see if we could turn up a rarity or two.  We ended up not finding anything very different but I did get another life bird when we flushed a Lanceolated Warbler a couple of times; a tiny, mouse-like, skulker but very welcome on the list.  And now onwards and time for the main event.

Azure-winged Magpies at the Mai Po HQ Building

Mai Po is world famous.  The marshes, fish ponds and mud flats of the reserve have been intensely birded and studied for years (a function of there being British birders in Hong Kong) and are legendary in birding circles.  I had actually been there once before but, lacking the correct permit, had not been able to access the best parts of the reserve at the right time and had seen very little.  This time I was properly permitted and birding with a local expert so my expectations were high and I'm happy to say they weren't disappointed.

Over the next six hours we saw more than 80 species at Mai Po, including 4 life birds for me.  On the way to the mud flats we worked our way through the fish ponds and found Black-browed Reed Warbler, Pied Harrier and Collared Crow, all of which were life birds for me.  We also flushed a bird that we were pretty sure was a White-browed Crake, a mega-rarity in Hong Kong, but were unable to re-find it so had to let the record go.  Then we spent several hours enjoying some of the best shore birding there is on offer anywhere in the world.

The mud flats at Mai Po are viewed from floating hides at the end of long boardwalks that lead out through the mangroves to the shores of the Pearl River.  The mud was quite literally covered in birds, and with a rising tide we took our places in the hides and started to study them as they got closer and closer.

The mud at Mai Po is literally carpeted with shore-birds and wading birds (plus a Collared Crow).

Wading birds were initially most obvious with three species of egret, several herons and the globally endangered BLACK-FACED SPOONBILL all feeding out on the mud.  Beneath them though was a carpet of shorebirds ranging in size from the larger  Eurasian Curlews, Whimbrels, and Black-tailed Godwits down to the smaller plovers and sandpipers running between their legs.  The reserve was famous for a trinity of very rare Asian shorebirds that would all have been potential life birds to me - Nordmann's Greenshank, Asiatic Dowitcher and Great Knot - and while diligent scanning didn't pull out either of the first two, we did find a couple of GREAT KNOT, a bird I was very happy to finally add to my list.

Eurasian Curlew and Whimbrel

We also managed another bird that was interested for me when we found a Long-billed Dowitcher, a bird I think of as North American but apparently they breed in small numbers in Asia too.

The greatest excitement of the day though was when John, scanned through the hundreds of Pacific Golden-Plovers handed me the scope and said, "what do you think about this one?".  He knew the answer already of course, the eye-pattern was different and a sort of breast-band effect strongly suggested EUROPEAN GOLDEN-PLOVER, only the 3rd one ever recorded in Hong Kong!

European Golden-Plover

So a great day, and with a few hours to kill we headed over to the San Tin fish ponds to see if we could add a few extra species.  We weren't expecting to top the excitement of the plover but not 10 minutes after arriving we stumbled into another rarity, Hong Kong's 4th record of BOOTED WARBLER which we flushed from some grass and managed to get a few record shots of.  Truly a great day of birding and all in one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Booted Warbler

Asian Urban Birding (Part 2) - Singapore

A Full Saturday of Birding and Natural History in Singapore

After Tokyo, I took the long, late flight down to Singapore on Wednesday night, got settled at the ParkRoyal Hotel (very eco / green) and worked all day Thursday and Friday.  Saturday was a long-planned day off though and I'd arranged to meet local birding expert Lim Kim Chuah for a full day in the 'wilds' of the island.  Friday night, I met an old friend for dinner at the excellent National Kitchen restaurant and ate an excellent, and very local fish-head curry (how could I not order that when I saw it on the menu?).  I also drank a lot of cocktails - NEVER drink with Australians - so I set the alarm, then moved it to the other side of the hotel room so I'd be sure to get up.

Saturday March 5th - Various Singapore Hotspots

5:30am and we were on our way to the Central Catchment Preserve, Singapore's only remaining tract of real forest, preserved to protect the watershed around the main reservoir.  We arrived at the trail head well before dawn and walked the mile or so in to the reservoir in complete darkness, hoping for owls, and we did in fact hear some - a couple of Brown Boobooks and a couple of Sunda Scops-Owls.   Both species were calling close to the trail but we never did get a look at either, and as dawn started to approach their voices were replaced with those of Great Racket-tailed Drongos, Ruddy Kingfisher and a bunch of Blue-winged Pittas.

As the light came up, we started to actually see birds, including a close view of one of the Pittas, and over the next couple of hours we had really solid tropical birding adding 41 species of forest birds.

Dollar bird (above) and Banded Woodpecker (below) 

Long-tailed Macaque - we encountered a group of mostly females with young
on the trail.

Next stop was the Sungie Buloh Wetland Preserve, a very well organized series of trails and boardwalks in a coastal mangrove area.  We were here to focus mostly on shorebirds, but they didn't really cooperate for us.  What we had here instead was a very cool general natural history experience.  The visit started with a specialty bird, a Copper-throated Sunbird and we also soon added a good mix of herons, egrets, kingfishers, etc.  I was personally much more into the mangrove habitat though and spent most of the visit photographing things you more usually only see on natural history TV show - Archer Fish, Mudskippers, Water Monitors and even 2 Estuarine Crocodiles (the "Saltwater" Crocodile of Steve Irwin / Crocodile Hunter fame).

Helpful advice should you encounter an Estuarine Crocodile - the crocodile below
was just across the channel from this sign.

Asian Water Monitor with (non-native) Red-eared Slider friend

Fish Watching!  Archer Fish sp. and Mudskipper sp.

Tearing ourselves away from the mangroves we crossed back to the East side of the Island to look for a Spotted Wood-Owl, a life bird for me.  A juvenile owl had been roosting in Pasir Ris Park hopefully set up nicely for me to see along with a Buffy Fish-Owl that normally roosts in the same area (another potential lifer and a bird I'd missed several times before on Asia trips).  Two staked out life owls in one park, sounded like an awesome stop.

Trouble is ...... I have terrible karma with owls, I typically just don't find them.  Other people can walk through a forest and spot all sorts of roosting owls, I have trouble finding them even when I know where they are.  I have a theory that there is an 'owl-gene' ... some people have it, I don't.

So arriving at the park, we quickly racked up a decent list of good birds while heading to owl site number 1.  Thirty minutes later, with no sign of the owl, we gave up and tried for owl number 2 .... nada!  Another typical Welsh Birder dips owls scenario ... one I'm all too familiar with.

Red Junglefowl are quite common in Singapore and this Oriental Pied-Hornbill
was also quite confiding in the park.

On the way back to the car we decided to give the Wood-Owl one more try and (and this really NEVER HAPPENS) this time I actually spotted the Spotted Wood-Owl.  Life bird!

The Spotted Wood-Owl that I spotted!

Next stop .... Plovers!  Five Species of Plover in two quick stops (well four species and one upcoming split).  We picked up a Pacific Golden-Plover then added Malaysian Plover, Kentish Plover, Lesser Sand-Plover and a 'Swinhoe's Plover'.  This last form, the white-faced form of Kentish Plover seems destined for species status and so it was good to get one on my list just in case.

Malaysian Plover (above) and Lesser Sand-Plover (below)

Long-tailed Shrike

Running out of time, we had just enough energy for one more stop.  Kim Chuah had checked with friends and found the location of another roosting Buffy Fish-Owl so off we went for yet another attempt at this species.  We had spectacularly precise directions though so we quickly went to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, found the trail, found the vine that marked the roost, located the tree, and .... found the Buffy Fish-Owl.  Another life bird!

Buffy Fish-Owl ... my fourth attempt at this species and success!

So exhausted, and very happy, with 88 species of bird and a host of other vertebrate species, I got dropped back at the hotel.  Great day!