Pará
This is a fishing lodge in a fine position overlooking the rapids of the Salto do Thaimaçu on the Rio São Benedito, 160 km from Alta Floresta. The owner, Carlos Arroyo, is now keen to attract birders and has opened up four good trails in terra firme forest and campinarana (low forest on white sand). The pousada also has a camp on the Rio Cururu, 40 minutes drive away, where there is good birding along the access road and on the river. Carlos intends to open trails here too. Arthur and I were the first birders to visit the lodge.
The main attraction at Thaimaçu is the recently described Bald Parrot Pionopsitta aurantiocephala. In April 2003 a flock of the parrots came to a fruiting tree near the lodge every afternoon and we heard them on most days in the forest. The campinarana is full of manakins; we saw Red-headed, White-crowned, Snow-capped, Fiery-capped and Flame-crested Manakin (Pipra rubrocapilla, P. pipra, P. nattereri, Machaeropterus pyrocephalus, Heterocercus linteatus) and Cinnamon Tyrant Neopipo cinnamomea. We missed Black Manakin Xenopipo atronitens but it must be there. At the Rio Cururu I recorded two pairs of Yellow-browed Antbird Hypocnemis hypoxantha, presumably a range extension for the disjunct population of the lower Tapajós / Xingu interfluvium. Brown-throated Parakeet Aratinga pertinax and Brown Jacamar Brachygalba lugubris look very different from the plates shown for the local subspecies in Handbook of the Birds of the World. I am sure that there are many new things to be found in this practically unbirded territory.
The hotel can be reached by chartered light plane from Cuiabá and Alta Floresta or by road from Alta Floresta (four bumpy hours in the pousada’s pick-up). The home page is www.thaimacu.com.br.
The Floresta Nacional (FLONA) de Tapajós is administered by IBAMA for the controlled exploitation of timber. A permit to visit is easily arranged by going to the IBAMA office in Santarém (current cost is R$3 per person per day). There are two roads into the forest, one at km 67 and the other at km 83, off the asphalt road south from Santarém.
There is a 45 m high canopy tower at base 67. Entering the forest at km 67, you eventually reach a fork in the road. Keep right and right again through a gate (sometimes) locked until you reach a point where you can’t drive any further. The tower lies off on a trail 150 m to the right. If the gate (which is easily bypassed on foot) is locked, it is only c.0.5 km to walk from there to the tower.
At both bases the forest is excellent for birding, provide you stay away from where they are actively logging. A bird list for the FLONA is available on the web in Henriques et al., Ornitologia Neotropical 14 (2003).
Between Santarém and Alter do Chão, 30 km to the west on the bank of the Tapajós , there is an area of campina, similar to cerrado. There are many hotels in Alter do Chão.
In 2000 we hired one of the many boats along the river-front at Santarém for R$90 (US$45) for the day. On the Ilha do Igarapé-açu, in front of Santarém, between the Tapajós and the Amazon, we saw Lesser Hornero Furnarius minor. We would have seen more if our boat had had a canoe to enable us to land more easily.
I am grateful to Guy Kirwan for updating the notes for Santarém to November 2005.
The last part of the road from Santarém to Itaituba is terrible. Do not drive, but fly. It is possible to drive from Cuiabá to Itaituba but until the final 800km of dirt road are paved this section will take 1-2 days in dry weather and a week in wet, in a four wheel drive vehicle. Arrangements to stay in the park (R$20/US$15 per person per night in 2000) should be made with the park director, Sr. Salles, who lives in Itaituba (tel. 091-518-3242). He will arrange for a married couple to guide, clean, cook and wash clothes (R$60 per day) and for a hired pick-up (R$130 per day incl. driver – the driver stays at the park and you feed him). The accommodation at Uruá, on a bluff above the River Tapajós, is simple but adequate. There is a generator. Shopping is done before you leave Itaituba, 1 ½ hours drive from the park. Take plenty of bottled water as the Tapajós is polluted by mercury.
The trails are as per Forrester, with the addition of a new excellent 5km loop, starting and finishing at Uruá. Get to know the morototó, a tree looking not unlike a cecropia. When fruiting it is a magnet for tanagers, aracaris, cotingas, white-crested guan Penelope pileata and brown-chested barbet Capito brunneipectus. We found harlequin antbird Rhegmatorhina berlepschi on two occasions on the Uruá trail but dipped both visits on pale-faced antbird Scutchia borbae, which has however been seen along the Capelinha trail. There is an annotated bird list for the park by David Oren in Ornithological Monographs No. 48.
This is a magnicent and little known birding destination, with hundreds of kilometers of good roads in pristine forest. The Floresta Nacional de Carajás (FLONA) is nominally administered by IBAMA but the Companhia do Vale do Rio Doce holds the mining concession and calls the shots. The FLONA is one third of the size of Belgium and in this area there are four large mines, for iron, manganese, copper and gold. The iron ore deposits are the largest in the world.
To visit Carajás you need permission from both IBAMA and the CVRD. Write to Joraci José Grigolo (aka Gaucho) joraci1@yahoo.com.br of the CVRD security department. Joraci is a forest guard who is assigned as minder to visiting birders. He has become an accomplished guide and he will make the arrangements for your visit.
If you arrive by road (700 km from Belém; 9 hours on a surprisingly good road) you will need the IBAMA authorisation to enter the FLONA and drive to the “núcleo urbano”, the manicured company town, 25km into the forest, where the mine management lives. There are two hotels here, the Cedro and the Jatobá. The Cedro (tel. (94) 3328-2124 and 3328-1570) is the more expensive and has a restaurant. In 2005 the Jatobá (tel. (94) 3328-2184) cost R$45 (US$18) / person / night for a double room with breakfast. Both hotels supply pack lunches.
If you arrive by air you can hire a car at the airport, which is inside the FLONA, and drive to the núcleo urbano but you will need the IBAMA authorisation and the CVRD minder to get into the rest of the reserve.
There is reasonable birding along the track to the left just inside the entrance to the FLONA, which runs along the Rio Parauapebas. There is also a track between the airport and the núcleo urbano and another, down to a reservoir, between the núcleo urbano and the iron mine. To obtain access to the main part of the forest, however, you have to pass a second gatehouse, into the iron mine, 12km from the núcleo urbano.
Once past the iron mine one enters a huge tract of terra firme forest and even in a week one can barely scrape the surface of the site’s potential. The most accessible birding areas are the road to the copper mine at Salobo and a side road to Igarapé Águas Claras, off the road to the gold mine at Igarapé Bahia. Carajás is hilly and there are several escarpments where one has fine views over the canopy. Where the iron ore is at the surface the forest is replaced by “canga”, a low, bushy vegetation with many birds typical of cerrado.
Carajás is perhaps most noteworthy for its cotingas, with a unique Brazilian population of White Bellbird Procnias alba. We regularly saw White-browed Purpletuft Iodopleura isabellae, even around the hotel, Spangled Cotinga Cotinga cayana and White-tailed Cotinga Xipholena lamellipennis, with the occasional Purple-breasted Cotinga Cotinga cotinga. Other interesting species here are Pearly Parakeet Pyrrhura lepida (formerly P. perlata), Rufous-necked Puffbird Malacoptila rufa, Rufous-capped Nunlet Nonnula ruficapilla, Black-bellied Gnateater Conopophaga melanogaster, “Concolor” Woodcreeper Dendrocolaptes certhia concolor, Peruvian Recurvebill Simoxenops ucayalae, Black-and-white Tody-Tyrant Poecilotriccus capitalis, Black-chested Tyrant Poecilotriccus andrei, Opal-crowned Manakin Pipra iris, Blackish Peewee Contopus nigrescens and Guianan Gnatcatcher Polioptila guianensis. Joraci knows where to find these species.
There is a bird list for Carajás in Cotinga 27
I strongly recommend making a tour of the iron mine. Joraci will show you around in a couple of hours.
In 2005 Arthur and I visited the Goeldi Museum’s scientific station at Caxiuanã with a group, following an ornithological congress in Belém. Caxiuanã is visited by some birding tour groups but it does not seem possible to go there as an individual. From Belém one flies or takes an overnight boat to Breves and from there another boat (10 hours) to Caxiuanã. There is an excellent 55 m canopy tower but the trail system is limited. Golden parakeet Guarouba guaruba is seen regularly. See the web site at http://www.museu-goeldi.br/ecfpn/info.html.)
