Hello Photographers!

There are birds that draw attention for their song. Others, for behavior. But few can make as much impact as the tanagers. Combining shades of blue, green, yellow, red, and black, they look like they were hand-painted.

Brazil is home to dozens of species of manakins, a group to which tanagers belong. This incredible diversity is a result of the enormous variety of environments present in the Atlantic Forest, Amazon and Cerrado. Unfortunately, many of these birds depend on well-preserved forests and suffer from habitat loss. Each photograph can also be a conservation tool.

Photographing these birds requires more than equipment. It requires patience, observation and reading of the behavior, as tanagers hardly stay long on the same branch.

Some tips make all the difference:

To increase your chances:

✔ Observe trees in fruiting.

✔ Prefer to shoot in the early hours of the morning.

✔ Work with speeds between 1/1000 and 1/2500 s.

✔ Anticipate landing by observing which branches they use repeatedly.

More important than following the bird with the camera is learning to predict its behavior.

This is what transforms ordinary records into memorable photographs.

Brazil is home to some of the most beautiful tanager on the planet. Each encounter with these little jewels reinforces the importance of conserving our forest remnants, where it is still possible to admire one of the greatest riches of world biodiversity.

In nature photography, some images are impressive. Others are emotional. To photograph a tanager is to have the privilege of recording an instant in which the forest itself seems to gain new colors.

A tanager weighs little more than a few coins.

Still, it manages to carry with it one of the greatest demonstrations of nature's creativity.

Perhaps this is precisely what makes bird photography so special: we never know when the next masterpiece of the forest will appear before the lens.

Happy photos and see you soon!