Adilei, Raquel, Tom Friedel and I went to meet Neil and Sharon Willis and Mum Marny and son James in Santa Maria Madalena, an incredibly beautiful place at the foot of the Desengano State park late February 2012. This area is historically known for its coffee industry.

This is a three hours drive north from REGUA and we stayed in a wonderful small hotel belonging to Mario Vahia and went to explore the edges of this large highland area. The forest was magnificent and it wasn’t long before Adilei picked up the characteristic call of the Yellow-fronted Woodpecker. We then heard a group of Black-necked Aracaris which rapidly came to the call and posed magnificently for Adilei. These birds are normally associated with the drier highland interior area near Sumidouro so they were not unexpected.

The most intriguing bird we saw was the White-tailed Trogon Trogon viridis and this was moment of jubilation for Adilei as he hadn’t seen one for many years. It is not common to REGUA, found in similar highland areas like Sumidouro, drier and interior region of the state, and we had the opportunity to study it for some time. This bird differs from the Surucua Trogon Trogon surucua as you can see below by it’s distinctive tail feathers, and the blue eye-ring. We are still wondering why this bird is called the White-tailed Trogon.

The Black-throated Trogon Trogon rufous is still quite distinctive.

The place is wonderful for monkeys as well, and we saw the Howler and Capuchin monkeys.