These photographs document two trips to the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso and Tocantins in central Brazil, to observe the recently rediscovered Cone-billed Tanager Conothraupis mesoleuca and Kaempfer's Woodpecker Celeus obrieni, as well as the Araguaia endemics. However, the chief goal of both trips was to search for the globally threatened Hooded Seedeater Sporophila melanops, which is categorised as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct) by BirdLife International / IUCN (cf. Butchart et al. 2006). The work was concentrated in the Araguaia Valley, with searches for and of suitable habitat for Sporophila seedeaters on both banks of the river, in all three states. On both occasions we travelled slowly north through the Araguaia Valley. Much time was spent in the car searching for suitable marshy wetlands with high likelihood for finding seedeaters, stopping wherever we found such habitat. Wherever possible we asked local people about the presence of suitable areas for Sporophila, to aid our searches and save time. In such relatively short periods, it was of course impossible to fully explore the region, but on the first trip we were further hampered from exploring potentially interesting areas, for instance the road between Araguaiana and Cocalina, Mato Grosso, due to the prevailing weather conditions, which were very wet and prevented us taking many dirt roads because they were effectively impassable or likely to be so. Some of these areas were better covered on the second visit. Notes and, wherever possible, photographs were taken during all encounters with Yellow-bellied Seedeater Sporophila nigricollis, particularly concerning plumage variation. On the first trip, to start with, however, two days were spent in Emas National Park, in extreme south-west Goiás, conducting observations, making recordings and photographing the recently rediscovered Cone-billed Tanager, in order that searches for suitable habitat and playback trials for that species could be conducted further north in the Araguaia Valley. Significant time was spent further north in the states of Pará and Tocantins, also searching for suitable habitat for S. melanops, as well as conducting general avifaunal work in some comparatively poorly-covered regions of the country. In addition to myself, Guy Kirwan (who prepared these notes) and my brother, Jonathan, attended the first trip, and myself and Guy alone on the second.

Some species are geo-tagged especially when range does not correspond with the available literature, click on 'view map' to go to location.