I have neglected this blog in favour of the easier option of regular updates of bird news using my Twitter widget toy (see panel to the right and on my birdwatching page). However, a great day's discovery with the help of visiting ornithologist Bruno Lima has given me a good excuse to come back to it. The most interesting news is that this magnificent raptor gleaming in the sun while soaring over the house this afternoon turns out to be a Black-and-White Hawk-Eagle (Spizastur melanoleucus). At first we both thought it was the White-necked Hawk, the threatened species I have seen and photographed often here. But look at the two together below - first the hawk-eagle, next the hawk (from August), and you can see clear differences, notably the mask around the hawk-eagle's eyes and very different tails, plus the hawk's wing-feathers are totally white from below apart from a black rim.

Less than an hour before this sighting, Bruno had added another species to our list for the property, hearing from the bedroom balcony the song of the Pin-tailed Manakin (Ilicura militaris) from just inside the forest, behind the house. This is another species endemic to the Atlantic Forest (our 61st!), and together with the new hawk-eagle, the total species count is up to 205.

A mystery was definitively solved today, too. For the past week we have been puzzled by a group of large blackbirds hanging around the upper part of the pines in front of the house, making a strange squeaking noise a bit like a wheelbarrow that needs oiling. Bruno was racking his brains until we realised it was a group of Giant Cowbirds, already identified in December walking rather like a crow on the ground in the open pasture, but here congregating in a noisy group of 15-20 in the canopy. It is not common to see them in Atlantic Forest areas.

Finally, a gratuitously pretty picture I took of a butterfly on an orange flower that has been appearing alongside the upper entrance track to the property, where it passes through a fairly open grass/scrub area. They are magnets for all sort of butterflies (second one below) as well as hummingbirds such as the White-chinned Sapphire.

And just a final post-script. The Black-headed Berryeater, very elusive and threatened Cotinga which we had not heard between July and April, has returned to the forest here, much to our relief as it is one of the "star" species of this place. I had been hearing its distinctive whistle just occasionally, but Bruno returned from the main forest trail just now reporting that he had really good sightings of it after attracting it close just by imitating the whistle.

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