Ask our guides what converts an ordinary traveler into a lifelong birdwatcher, and they will not say the toucans or the eagles. They will say the jewels: the hummingbirds and tanagers, the small iridescent birds that make the Atlantic Rainforest glitter.
The hummingbirds first. Brazil holds dozens of species, and the corridor’s gardens and forest edges swarm with them: swallow-tailed hummingbirds like flying sapphire, glittering-throated emeralds, the minute festive coquette. A flowering tree in the morning is a theatre of whirring, scolding, metallic light.
Then the tanagers — and here the Atlantic Rainforest shows off. The Brazilian tanager, tiê-sangue, is a bird so red it looks artificial. The green-headed tanager wears five colours that should not coexist. Its Portuguese name, saíra-sete-cores, is a plain statement of fact. These are not rare skulkers: they come to fruit feeders and forest edges, at eye level, in good light. It is almost unfair to other continents.
For photographers, the jewel-birds are the perfect apprenticeship: small, fast, forgiving of beginner mistakes because there is always another one coming. For everyone else, they are simply proof that the forest keeps its finest work at close range. You do not need a lens to enjoy a tiê-sangue. You need only to stand still.
Walk this story
This note was written on the trails of
The Golden Lion Encounter.
✦ Sources & further reading
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology — Birds of the World — species accounts for the hummingbirds and tanagers of the Atlantic Forest · birdsoftheworld.org
- eBird — Cornell Lab of Ornithology — sightings data for Rio de Janeiro State · ebird.org
