These are photos from an Ornifolks trip, led by Guy Kirwan, to Carajás, in Pará¡ state, with some from Tijuca and Serra dos Órgãos National Park, in Rio de Janeiro state. The latter two areas I had visited the year before, but as our flight was changed we had a spare day to kill. Lying between the Xingu and the Tocantins rivers, the Serra dos Carajás sports the largest open-cast mines in the world and one of the richest avian biodiversities on the planet, 575 species and counting: our trip yielded seven species new to that list. Carajás is particularly rich in woodcreepers and antbirds, but is perhaps most famous for being the place to see the very poorly known Black-chested Tyrant. Although most people are not so keen on tyrant-flycatchers, few people can fail to be impressed by this great bird. Naturally, it was our principal target. Fortunately, a pair is virtually 'staked out' close to our hotel and we got to see this species, until recently considered unknown in life, on our first morning in the field! We recorded almost 400 species during our two-week trip including many other uncommon and sought-after species. Some of the highlights included great looks at Banded Antbird (here at the easternmost edge of its range), two brief views of the localised Peruvian Recurvebill, great looks at Pearly Parakeet, a sadly brief sighting of the recently described Cryptic Forest Falcon (too quick for a photo), great views of Opal-crowned Manakin, a couple of sightings of Yellow-shouldered Grosbeak (I was to get better photographs next year at Alta Floresta), Black-and-white Tody-Tyrant, the undisputed 'king' of the gneateaters, Black-bellied Gnateater, several sightings of the uncommon Blackish Pewee (Carajás also seems to be best place in the world to find this flycatcher too), White-crested Guan, and Rufous-capped (Grey-cheeked) Nunlet. Mammals were also very much in evidence, with at least five species of primates, Southern Tamadua, a couple of great views of Brazilian Tapir, and even a Puma. (Amazingly, the following year Guy had a black Jaguar on the same stretch of road as the Puma, whilst leading another tour.) We even had time for a spot of sight-seeing in Rio at the end!

For a complete list of the bird species recorded at Carajás, see the following paper: Pacheco, J. F., Kirwan, G. M., Aleixo, A., Whitney, B. M., Whittaker, A., Minns, J., Zimmer, K. J., Fonseca, P. S. M., Lima, M. F. C. & Oren, D. C. (2007) An avifaunal inventory of the CVRD Serra dos Carajás project, Pará, Brazil. Cotinga 27: 15-30. You can download this paper by pointing your browser at http://www.freewebs.com/guykirwan/tourleading.htm and following the appropriate link.