Today we set off for the lower part of the Canastra park - before entering we searched much of the Sao Francisco river hunting for the rare Brazillian merganser duck but despite much searching it remained elusive. We also stopped at other locations looking for birds seeing amongst others, the guira cuckoo, buff necked ibis, the scaly dove, the squirrel cuckoo, a magnificent king vulture perched and in breeding kit!
When we reached the park we walked from the entrance to the river and then along the riverbank to the first waterfall on the Sao Francisco River which we had sat above yesterday. A lovely waterfall - but our target was to find amongst other things the helmeted manekin which we did - a beautiful black bird with a red crown with a quiff at the front. (For all birds see list later.)
Having walked back from the falls we ate our packed lunch by the river and then headed out of the lower park and back to the upper park to spend our afternoon hunting for anteaters and maned wolf. Enroute Fred heard marmosets calling and yes we glimpsed black tufted ear marmosets in the trees looking at us before continuing their journey through the trees.
As we were on the road to the upper entrance we saw an animal on the road - I knew it was wild and not a dog - not a maned wolf as it was blue grey and not reddish it also had short legs not the long legs of a wolf but what was it ? Fred proclaimed that it was a crab eating fox - which he had not seen here before and is more usually spotted in the Pantanal - an unexpected sighting - brilliant!
Back in the wide open spaces of the plateau we started our search - Fred spotted one anteater but it was too far away to try and get closer - but we had a good look at it through binoculars - after further searching and one false alarm latter Fred spotted another anteater snuffling through the grass and relatively close. We decided to stay downwind and make our way towards it - this time the ground albeit not perfect was far better than yesterday and John came all the way with us. We watched photographed and filmed the animal for 15-20 minutes until it froze, twitched its nose, smelt us and scuttled off. An excellent experience just to be able to watch such an interesting animal going about its business - and ask how it evolved to look like that. It might be a giant anteater but within the grasslands it is not so big and it's colouration means it blends really well with its surrounding's.
As we slowly wended our way out of the park we saw a few more pampas deer but decided not to stay beyond dusk and look for nightjars but to return have dinner and pack ready for our trip to Caraca tomorrow. We were back at 1830 and returned to our normal restaurant for dinner - the coffee at the end of the meal with hot milk was perfect - although not a brazilian tradition they mastered our English tastes by the end of our stay!