REGUA, Atlantic Forest, Brazil: 15 June

We finally had some hawkmoths come into the moth light during the night and so I spent an hour or so this morning getting some photos. In total there was 3 hawkmoths of 3 different species: Adhemarius gagarini, Adhemarius palmeri and Hemeroplanes ornatus. I cannot recommend highly enough A Guide to the Hawkmoths of the Serra dos Orgaos, South-eastern Brazil, by Alan Martin, Alexandre Soares and Jorge Bizarro. I know almost nothing about hawkmoths and how to identify them, but I found the guide very easy to use from the start. Lets hope Alan doesn't take too long writing a similar guide to all the micros!!

Male Adhemarius gagarini

Adhemarius palmeri

Male Hemeroplanes ornatus

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There were also a lot of other smaller moths on the wall this morning, which I'm even more clueless about. But this morning's mothing got cut short by the appearance of a superb Pearly-breasted Cuckoo perched out in the open and at close range on the lodge pergola for almost half and hour. The bird later moved to the drive where it fed on caterpillars at very close range. 4 Orange-winged Parrot and 2 Ringed Kingfisher over, and a pair of Yellow-backed Tanager were the best of the other birds seen around the lodge this morning.

Pearly-breasted Cuckoo on the lodge pergola
photographed from room 2

The cuckoo would shake hairy caterpillars to remove the hairs (click to enlarge)

A walk around the Light Blue Trail focusing on butterflies resulted in Rachel finding a good butterfly for the reserve - a Malachite Siproeta stelenes, which REGUA's Research Co-ordinator, Jorge Bizarro, says should be present at REGUA in good numbers but for some reason are not. In fact even though it is a widespread species throughout Latin America, this is only the second record for REGUA (the other also occurred in June)!

Malachite Siproeta stelenes - only the second record for REGUA

Birds seen on the Light Blue Trail included a pair of White-flanked Antwren, 1 Plain Xenops, 1 Eye-ringed Tody-Tyrant, 1 Euler's Flycatcher and a superb Grey-hooded Attila, and on the Forest Trail a Long-billed Wren showed very well but refused to pose for photos.

In the evening Rachel and I teamed up with Sue and her group for some night-birding along the Onofre Cunha Trail. Unfortunately things were very quiet with virtually no birds vocalising, however, we did hear at least 2 Mottled Owl and had distant views of a Black-banded Owl. A brief Crab-eating Fox Cerdocyon thous from the truck on the dirt road back to the lodge was an added bonus.