Brazil - The Atlantic Rainforest - June 2025 - Day 3 - Intervales State Park - Lajeado Trail

Trilha do Lajeado

Another early breakfast, another early start. Today we were going to bird the Lajeado trail, one of the best spots in the park for the hard to find Russet-winged Spadebill. It's a long trail, mostly downhill along the contours of a hillside, crossing a stream and then continuing further into the forest. About 3km in is the house that Betin was born in, now a ruin. It was dense and shady, and actually rather quiet. Perhaps the birds knew that rain was on the way? As we reached the end of the trail, or at least about as far as the house was, it began to rain. It was only 9am, the weather app had promised that it wouldn't rain until the afternoon. Weather apps in rainforests are useless, I probably should have known that. So at the far end of the trail and as far from the car as we could be, we faced an 3.5km uphill slog on a slippery track in the rain with no birds. Excellent. The perils of birding. However after my experiences in Colombia I now always bird in the tropics with a small umbrella, and this came to my rescue. Mick had left his umbrella in the room...

That said, the walk down - lack of Spadebills aside - had actually been pretty good, and over a couple of hours we had seen upwards of 40 species. These included Surucua Trogon, Lineated Woodpecker, White-browed Woodpecker, Streak-capped Antwren, White-shouldered Fire-eye, four species of Woodcreeper, five different Foliage-gleaners, a splendid Red-ruffed Fruitcrow, Wing-barred Piprites, Grey-hooded Flycatcher, Sao Paolo Bristle-Tyrant, Red-crowned Ant-Tanager and Brown Tanager. No photos, too dark and too wet.

We reached the car just as it stopped raining. Or perhaps it continued to rain along that particular ridge and we were simply now clear of it? Whatever, it was a shame that it had rather curtailed the morning's birding, and had meant the Spadebill had not shown (another visiting birder went down the same track in clear weather the following day and had great views!). We were assured by Bruno that we had another chance at Legado das Aguas.

The park entrance

Rufous-collared Sparrow

White-throated Woodcreeper

With time to kill before lunch we spent the rest of the morning around the buildings near the visitor centre. Around the corner from where we had seen the Red-and-White Crakes earlier in the trip was another small gap in the reeds. This was the feeding station for Rufous-sided Crake, and it wasn't long before one appeared for a meal. It was very shy indeed, and at one stage was chased away by a Red-and-White Crake! Close by we found a Southern Yellowthroat and a Violaceous Euphonia, a White-throated Woodcreeper and the usual cast of Saffron Finch, Hornero,  Rufous-collared Sparrow, Masked Water-Tyrant and Rufous-bellied Thrush.

At the village we scoffed down some food to maximise time at the feeders. Earlier in the morning after breakfast we had reconfigured the perches with a new mossy branch we had found and it was apparent that the birds didn't seem to mind it. Their focus was exclusively bananas, mossy branches were irrelevant. Indeed the biggest problem was that they barely spent any time on the branch at all as they were so fixated on gorging themselves on fruit. In short it was wonderful, with Olive-Green Tanager, Black-goggled Tanager, Ruby-crowned Tanager, Brazilian Tanager, Sayaca Tanager, Azure-shouldered Tanager, Golden-chevroned Tanager, Palm Tanager, Burnished-buff Tanager and Green-headed Tanager all visiting. Brown Tanager came into the tree but never down to the fruit. Variable Oriole were in the Araucaria, and we finally had good views of Campo Flicker.

Olive-green Tanager

Azure-shouldered Tanager

Golden-chevroned Tanager

Black-goggled Tanager

Green-headed Tanager

Brazilian Tanager

Ruby-crowned Tanager

We stopped on the road between the village and the park briefly as it was a good spot for Grey-bellied Spinetail. These were duly persuaded to pop out of the bushes, and was also saw our one and only Fawn-breasted Tanager here, a pair of Grey-headed Elaenia, and a Mottle-cheeked Tyrant.

Back in the park we birded around the Casa de Pesquisa. Unicoloured Antwren showed nicely, as did Lesser Woodcreeper, and a Laughing Falcon was perched in a dead tree. A Brown-breasted Pygmy-Tyrant showed very nicely after a short while, as did White-browed Foliage-gleaner, and several Long-tailed Tyrants perched on the wires near the house but never anywhere for a nice photo. 

Southern Lapwing

Back at the site where we had seen the King Vulture the previous evening we burned another half hour or so on a recalcitrant Mouse-coloured Tapaculo. There were actually two here, very very close to the road but we could see neither. A tough gig. Good views were had of Planalto Woodcreeper and Streaked Xenops though. So a bit of a mixed day, with rain and Tapaculos taking the honours, but the session at the feeders had been just what we had wanted. We still had the following day to eke out a few more species.