Serra da Canastra National Park

I have been away from Regua for a short break to travel around Brazil with my partner Lorna.

I organised an itinerary with the help of Jan at Brazil Nature Tours and I can highly recommend him and the company to others travelling around Brazil, particularly with complicated itineraries.

The first portion of our trip was in Minas Gerais state (4th largest Brazilian state) and our Guide was Fred Tavares, who cannot be recommended highly enough, not just for this area, but for any region of the country and we had a very enjoyable time with him.

Our first destination was the Parque Nacional da Serra da Canastra, which protects 715 Square km of cerrado and gallery forest. Cerrado is a tropical savannah found across 20% of Brazil and is the main biome of the eastern plateau. The cerrado is little known in comparison to other major ecosystems in Brazil, but is surprisingly important as it is home a third of all the species in the country, but is severely threatened by destruction for Soya plantations.

We spent two full days exploring the park from our base in San Rouqe de Minas, where we stayed at the Chapado do Canastra Hotel.

On the first day we explored the highland cerrado, rock fields and open grasslands and the second we spent time in the lower farmlands, gallery forest and river valley.

The mammal list for the park is very impressive but it is particularly important for cerrado specialists. Canastra is famous for being the best place (probably in the world) to see Giant anteater which can be found by scanning the grasslands and looking for an odd shaped rock that will eventually move. The first one I spotted was maybe 3/4 of a mile away and stood out only for being the only dark shape in an area devoid of rocks. Once we located an anteater we approached them downwind, sometimes to within 10 meters. It is possible to get so close because they have very poor senses other than smell and have their head down for long periods. We saw a total of 5 different anteaters in the 2 days inside the park, but we stopped looking for them after that so could of maybe seen more.

Giant anteater

The other two mammal targets were pampas deer and maned wolf. The pampas deer are reasonably abundant in the cerrado but quite hard to spot, however we saw 5 during our time including some close views in an area of recently burnt grass which they favour for the fresh growth.

Pampas deer

Maned wolf is definitely the hardest of the three mammals to find but we found one on the first afternoon whilst walking closer to an anteater. The views are often distant, but the population in Canastra is good and as a result they are closely monitored by researchers, including the one we saw which was radio-collared.

Maned wolf

 

Around the town of Sao Roque de Minas and in the gallery forests around the river there is a healthy population of the black-tufted ear marmoset, which sometimes visit the gardens of the town including our hotel, we found a group of 4 on our last day in a garden early in the morning.

Black-tufted ear marmoset

In the lower half of the park the habitat changes to gallery forest and the fauna and flora is quite different. The Rio San Fransico runs through this section and it is well preserved to maintain habitat for the critically endangered Brazilian merganser. Canastra is of vital importance for this species as it holds almost the entire world population of just over 200 pairs. However they are a very difficult bird to see and their habitat (clear fast flowing water with gallery forest) is being well protected to keep disturbance to a minimum. Fred helped monitor the mergansers before and knew their habits very well which helped us have great views of a pair on several occasions.

Casca d' Anta waterfall.

The bird highlights in the cerrado included
Gray-backed tachuri, long-tailed tyrant, cock-tailed tyrant, crested black tyrant, campo flicker, wedge-tailed grass finch, white-eared puffbird, toco toucan, red-legged seriema, greater rhea, spotted nothura, red-winged tinamou, bat falcon, aplomado falcon, amercian kestrel, white-rumped tanager, crested becard, sooty tyrannulet, hooded siskin, chopi blackbird, white-rumped monjita, yellow-rumped marsh bird, yellow-bellied seedeater, stripe-tailed yellow finch, blue finch, plumbeous seedeater, pileated finch, firewood gatherer, pale-breasted spinetail, black-throated saltator, tawny-headed swallow, great dusky swift and band and sickle winged nightjars.

The bird highlights in the lower part of the park included:
Brazilian merganser, helmeted manakin, cliff flycatcher, green-winged saltator, guira tanager, burnished buff tanager, sayaca tanager, crested oropendola, palm tanager, short-crested flycatcher, blue dancis, highland eleania, bananquit, long-tailed tyrant, streamer tailed tyrant, blue-black grassquit, plush-crested jay, king vulture, golden-capped parakeet, scaly-headed parrot, stripe-breasted starthroat, white-vented violetear, fork-tailed woodnymph, glittering-bellied emerald and swallow-tailed hummingbird.

Brazilian mergansers

Stripe-breasted starthroat