Welcome to Brazil {Parque Estadual da Cantareira}

 

Our arrival into Brazil was a little rough. We left Cusco around 7pm and flew to Lima before connecting to São Paulo for a 7am arrival. Unfortunately our Airbnb wouldn't allow us to check in until 3pm, so we found a storage locker for our backpacks, and got a ride to Parque Estadual da Cantareira (Cantareira State Park). It's a very large park with three separate districts. We chose to visit the Núcleo Cabuçu section. 

This is the Atlantic Forest, a precious part of the world with biodiversity ranking with the Amazon, within the borders of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. It was once the second largest rainforest in the world. Tragically most of this forest has been cleared for housing, industry, and agriculture, leaving only about 15% of the original forest today! 150 million people live within this forest, mostly in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

In this tropical forest can be found 2,200 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, and 20,000 species of plants. Half of the trees, almost all the amphibians, and 200 of the birds are endemic, can not be found anywhere else in the world! 

This Southern Lapwing was hanging around the lake's edge.

Check out that camouflage!

Birding in the Atlantic Forest can be challenging with such thick vegetation. I could hear this Star-throated Antwren calling while flitting low in the bamboo, but getting eyes on it was tough, and this is the best photo I could manage. It was an exciting chase! 

Ruddy Ground Dove

It was in the 80s, which felt even hotter coming from 11,000ft in Cusco, and our lack of sleep. Daddy and the kids napped on some picnic tables while I went looking for birds. When I came back, there were Howler Monkeys in the trees above my family! 

Check out these enormous fungi!

We first thought someone left candy wrappers on the ground, but when I investigated further, we discovered these were tree seeds with a clear plastic-looking edge.

We planned to check out another section of the park a different day, but ran out of time. I hope to return to bird this area more in the future.