Dear Tweeters,

Last month Bill and I went on a birding tour to southern
Brazil, including parts of the Pantanal, Emas National Park, Cipo National
Park and Sanctuario do Cara?a, which is closer to the Atlantic Ocean. Of
the approximately 380 birds we saw on this trip, we managed to get usable
photographs of about 150 (I haven?t actually counted them). I have put
these bird photographs in phylogenetic order (so they start with Greater
Rhea and end with Golden-winged Cacique) and posted them in an album on
Flickr at the link below.



https://www.flickr.com/photos/29258421 at N07/albums/72157661444256685/page1



Some of the photos in the album are pretty good! But my aim in this album
was to have a memento of each bird that we photographed, so some, like the
Gray-headed Tanager, are a bit blurry. But they are in the minority.

My favorite group of birds on this trip were the
Tody-Flycatchers or Tody-Tyrants. They are little birds with flattened
bills. They are quite lovely and have lots of character, if you can get
them to come into view! My favorite individual bird was the Cliff
Flycatcher, which is easy to photograph and beautiful in flight.

This was our first foray into South America. We liked just
about everything we encountered?the Brazilian people were friendly and
helpful, the food was tasty and included lots of fruit and vegetables, we
saw quite a few mammals, reptiles, and butterflies too (different albums),
and the places we birded were beautiful. Since it was costly and
time-consuming to get our Brazilian visas, we plan to go back, if we can,
before they expire 10 years from now!

Cheers, Charlotte Byers, Seattle