Upon booking my flights to Buenos Aires from Johannesburg, I realised that the cheapest flight came with the bonus of a full day layover in São Paulo (at the expense of a multi-hour layover in the Luanda airport terminal), both on the way there and on the way back. My brother and I were flying to Argentina to visit friends for the December holidays, after which I would spend a few weeks birding in northwest Argentina with two birding friends. Needless to say, there were several other smaller trips planned during our stay in Argentina to mop up birds that I had missed on my previous visit to the country, including just over a week in Patagonia.
Anyway, these layovers in São Paulo were a welcome addition to the itinerary, and it was to be my first taste of birding in Brazil. We landed in São Paulo just after 3 am, picked up our bags, navigated passport control, spent about half-an-hour figuring out why we couldn’t use our cards to pay on Uber, attempted to draw cash, found out my MasterCard wasn’t working at the ATM, used my Visa Card, paid the Uber driver in cash, and we were off. We had booked an Airbnb in the central suburb of Jardim Paulista and arrived at our apartment just before sunrise.
We then took a stroll down to Ibirapuera Park (see my eBird checklist here). It was great to be back in South America, and I kicked off the trip list with a few widespread species like Eared Dove, Squirrel Cuckoo, Rufous Hornero, Narrow-billed Woodcreeper, Great Kiskadee, Boat-billed and Streaked Flycatchers, Southern House Wren, Rufous-bellied Thrush, Palm and Sayaca Tanagers, and Shiny Cowbird.
We strolled around the park for a few hours, working small, wooded patches and scanning over the dams where we saw White-faced Whistling Duck, Pied-billed Grebe, Snowy Egret, Cocoi Heron, and a few other common birds. I even managed to bag a few lifers, including Sick’s Swift, Blue-and-white Swallow, Masked Water Tyrant, the endemic Plain Parakeet, and my main target, Blond-crested Woodpecker. We had spent most of the day in the park and decided to spend the late afternoon exploring the suburbs around our Airbnb and having a celebratory beer.
On my way back through São Paulo, after my trip to Argentina, I would head out of the city and into the surrounding Atlantic Rainforests to add several new species. Read more about that in Part 2.
