Rufous-vented Ground-cuckoos ( Neomorphus geoffroyi ), top collected by M. M. Moreira in the ‘Municipality of Paragominas’ on 4 August 1968, bottom (collector unknown) obtained on 30 June 1897 from the Rio Capim at ‘Ressaca’. (A.C.L.) 

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... time accompanying a ‘typical’ canopy flock containing e.g. Lineated Woodcreper ( Lepidocolaptes albolineatus ), Grey Elaenia ( Myiopagis caniceps ), Para Gnatcatcher ( Polioptila paraensis ), Red-billed Pied- tanager ( Lamprospiza melanoleuca ) and Guira Tanager ( Hemithraupis guira ). These records represent the first for the interfluvium and the Belém CE and a range-extension of circa 450km from the nearest known site in Carajás, PA on the west bank of the Tocantins river (Pacheco et al. 2007). Wedge-tailed Grass-finch ( Emberizoides herbicola ). We recorded this species from three different pasture transects in three different catchments, single individuals in Catchment 202 on 22 August 2010 (Lees 2010x), Catchment 443 on 2 October 2010 (Lees 2010y) and Catchment 245 on 7 October 2010 (all A. C. L.). Portes et al. (2011) recorded this species in two municipalities in the CEB (Tailândia and Ulianópolis). We assume that this species has recently spread into the region from surrounding Cerrado landscapes, but this species may also have colonized jointly from the north where the species is present on natural grasslands on Marajó Island (Henriques & Oren 1997). To fully sample an Amazonian avifauna a variety of techniques need to be employed (c.f. Terborgh et al. 1990, Somenzari et al. 2011). Our sampling protocol was based upon point counts and general field observations. It did not make use of mist-nets or canopy towers, and given our research priorities of understanding region-wide impacts of land-use change on biodiversity, was heavily biased towards degraded or regenerating terra firme forest sites and agricultural production landscapes. We missed a total of 20 species previously recorded from the region, typically those found close to rivers (e.g. Sunbittern ( Eurypyga helias ), Crimson Topaz ( Topaza pela ) and Golden- crowned Spadebill ( Platyrinchus coronatus )), or rare and low-density species generally restricted to extensive areas of primary forest (e.g. Crested Eagle ( Morphnus guianensis ), Vulturine Parrot ( Pyrilia vulturina ) and Wing- banded Antbird ( Myrmornis torquata )), neither of which were sampled extensively in our study. We were shown the remains of two nests reported to pertain to Harpy Eagles ( Harpia harpyja ) by foresters but do not list this species in Appendix 1 as we were unable to independently confirm the species identification from the relictual nest architecture alone (i.e. separate them from Crested Eagle nests). Some typically more common forest-dependent species recorded by Portes et al. (2011) were unrecorded by us (e.g. Gray-rumped Swift, ( Chaetura cinereiventris ), Plain-winged Antshrike ( Thamnophilus schistaceus ), Black- throated Antbird ( Myrmeciza atrothorax ), Zimmer’s Tody- tyrant ( Hemitriccus minimus ) and Dusky-capped Greenlet ( Hylophilus hypoxanthus )), although documentation for these species not previously recorded from the CEB has not been made publically available and no voucher skins were collected. We recommend caution before accepting these records for the CEB, and strongly encourage the publication of voucher material (specimens, photos, and recordings) obtained in the CEB in the future for those species and others which would also represent similarly significant range-extensions. High-diversity tropical sites require many years, if not decades, of fieldwork to be completely inventoried (Remsen 1994), and colonizers, migrants and vagrants may be added at a slow rate, especially considering the colonization possibilities afforded for non-forest species from neighboring Cerrado and Caatinga landscapes in Maranhão. That naturally rare and/or unobtrusive species such as Olive-green Tyrannulet, Large-headed Flatbill and Yellow-shouldered Grosbeak could remain undetected in the interfluvium despite over two hundred years of ornithological fieldwork is a sage reminder of the danger of only conducting rapid biodiversity inventories (e.g. Gotelli & Colwell 2001). Moreover, if we are still identifying rare elements in the core terra firme forest avifauna in Paragominas, then it suggests there are many more undiscovered species in more remote areas of the Amazon basin. Our inventory will hopefully serve as a baseline from which future avifaunal compositional changes in the Paragominas municipality can be monitored and assessed. Based on our data we anticipate a gradual turnover with the potential for local (or even global) extinction of some forest-dependent species and a replacement by more non-forest taxa as has been documented elsewhere along the Arc of Deforestation (e.g. Lees & Peres 2006). The baseline avifaunal community has already shifted considerably since A. R. Wallace and E. Goeldi first travelled up the Rio Capim to sample the regional avifauna in the 19th century. Goeldi (1903) described Rufous-vented Ground-cuckoo ( Neomorphus geoffroyi ) as being ‘ not very rare on the High Capim ’, and there are several old specimens from the region (e.g. Figure 15). This species must now be very rare and dependent on the protection of the region’s largest remaining forest blocks, which include western Paragominas, where a pair was recorded in September 2007 (Portes et al. 2011). The same hope, however, cannot be expressed for either the Hyacinth Macaw ( Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus ), or the Belém CE endemic subspecies of Bare-faced Currasow ( Crax fasciolata pinima ), the first of which is certainly locally extinct. We carried out many opportunistic semi- structured interviews with local people and hunters about the presence of the curassow but could find no- one familiar with the species in Paragominas, despite widespread knowledge of Razor-billed Curassows ( Pauxi tuberosum ). This suggests that this taxon is already locally (if not globally) extinct and has evidently been ‘lost from memory’ by the local inhabitants, probably because it is among the most sought-after and easiest to capture game species (Brooks et al. 2007, L. F. Silveira pers. com .). The subspecies was last recorded with certainty in the wild in 1978 (Silveira & Straube 2008). Our total of 440 species probably represents at least 85% of the expected (non-vagrant) species pool in a peripheral Amazonian landscape, which is naturally less diverse than interfluves further west on account of the region’s rather uniform topography, reduced precipitation, and restricted ecosystem diversity (cf. Rahbeck & Graves 2001, Hoorn et al. 2010). Nevertheless, what the region cannot muster in terms of total species richness (although this total still represents around 4% of the total global avian species richness) is compensated for by its importance as the last redoubt for a number of endemic and restricted-range (and poorly-known) taxa, the exact taxonomic position of which may be the subject of future systematic revisions (cf. Bird et al. 2011). With a recent municipality-wide ban on deforestation and efforts to restore some areas of forest, we hope that future surveys provide a more positive assessment of the conservation prospects of the regional avifauna. However, these positive environmental policies may take time to have an effect, and need to be balanced by the extinction debt associated with past forest loss, ongoing hunting pressure, and the impacts of future land uses, including agricultural intensification, agroforestry and the expansion of silviculture and biofuel ...