Canudos Biological Station
The Canudos Biological Station is located in Bahia, in the northeast of the country, and it is most notable for its population of Lear’s Macaws—a large, blue, threatened parrot species very similar to the slightly larger and more famous Hyacinth Macaw found in Brazil’s Pantanal.
Canudos is an initiative started by the Biodiversitas Foundation with the express purpose of protecting this beautiful, highly threatened parrot and the station has been responsible for helping populations recover from a few dozen individuals in the late 1980s to around 1,700 today.
This is definitely not the Brazil most people know about or come for. Canudos is surrounded by sandstone canyons and is an example of prime caatinga habitat—arid shrubland and thorn forest characterized by small, prickly trees, thickstemmed plants, cacti and hardy grasses.
Despite its aridness, the Caatinga is a birdwatcher’s paradise (350 species), and home to 185 species of fish, 44 lizards, 9 amphisbaenians, 47 snakes, 4 turtles, 3 crocodilians, and 80 mammals.
Canudos has 6 simple suites that can accommodate up to 12 people. The best time to visit Canudos (or the Caatinga in general) is between January and May—the region’s relatively short wet season—when everything is in bloom and the Lear’s Macaws are breeding (between February and April).
www.conservationbirding.org/?reserve=canudos-biological-station