The sighting of a pair of Swallow-tailed Cotingas gathering nest material in the Chapeu do Sol (Sun Hat) tree by the lake was an important discovery for Sítio do Cervo. This breathtakingly beautiful, Near-threatened species has not previously been recorded nesting in Lowland Atlantic Forest, but was thought to make migratory movements down the slope from the mountains during the austral winter. 

The discovery was thanks to a very successful visit to the sítio by the Vice President and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society of London, Professor Lorna Casselton, and her colleague Luke Clarke, policy adviser at the Science Policy Centre. They made the trip after the UK-Brazil Frontiers of Science Symposium in Itatiba, São Paulo State, at which I was invited to speak about the communication of science. On our first walk to the forest, Lorna (whose post dates back nearly 300 years to before there was a Foreign Secretary to the British government) spotted a bird with a swallow-like tail, and Bruno, who was guiding, became very excited as only Bruno can become excited. His excitement became almost unbearable as he saw the pair of cotingas were gathering moss and twigs from the tree, so are clearly nesting here for the spring. The result was this fantastic sequence of photos.

There were other good sightings during the visit. On a walk along the forest edge above the house, we peeked through the undergrowth to see a bunch of male Blue Manakins preparing to do their extraordinary mating dance. Here is a great shot of one of the males taken by Bruno through the thicket.

Also at the forest edge, this Ochre-collared Piculet, a tiny member of the woodpecker family, came down from an upper branch to pose just in front of us, after Bruno played its call.

On a morning walk through the forest to the river, the most dependable of our understorey birds, the Black-cheeked Gnateater, came out for the visitors. Like many species, it shows behaviour only seen during this period at the start of the breeding season - the male holds its head up almost vertically to show off the bright white patch under the chin, a pose Bruno captured nicely in this photograph.

Also on the forest walk, we got our best photo yet of the Sharp-tailed Streamcreeper, a member of the ovenbird family that we always glimpse and hear, well, creeping in streams. Because it tends to be rummaging about amongst leaves and other detritus on the bank, it is not easy to photograph - this one was in a more open area close to a forest wetland. If you look closely you can see a spider in its beak.

Lorna and Luke topped off their visit with a great gift for the Sítio, a print from the Royal Society archive of a colour drawing of a toucan by the 19th century ornithologist John Gould, whose illustrations of Galapagos finches helped inspire Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Best of all, it is even the correct subspecies, Ramphastos Vitellinus Ariel, which we had been observing by the river bank that morning. I will finish off the post with a few more sights from the trip - click on the thumbnails to see the photos full-size and with captions.