Rick Simpson Birding Services

São Sebastião is a town along the coast towards São Paulo. It is the point at which many tourists take the ferry across to the ever popular Ilha Bela destination. I had to visit there today and thought, while I was there, that I’d try to catch up with the Stygian Owl which has been roosting near the church there for some time.

I contacted two local biologists Beatriz Lopes and Marcio Toledo who are trying to develop birding in the town, and seem to be doing a good job. They have recently launched a blog http://birdsaosebastiao.blogspot.com

Stygian Owl, São Sebastião.

As you can see we were lucky with the owl. This owl has been in this area since November, roosting in the same tree and has become a bit if a local celebrity. When we arrived we were met by an elderly gentleman sitting on the bench under the tree: “Come to see our owl?” He asked. It is good to see the local community embrace this bird and adopt it as ‘theirs’. The name in Portuguese is mocho-diabo. Mocho, according to my dictionary, means: A small nocturnal bird smaller than an owl. This doesn’t make much sense in that it is large and also definitely an owl. The ‘diabo’ bit means devil, and this being a bird sitting next to a church there was some concern that local sentiment may make some try to scare it off, or worse! This thankfully has not come to pass.

São Sebastião is a port town where much oil and petroleum is handled, it is due to expand greatly when the new oil field near Santos is opened. As a result there will be a great deal of upheaval in the region, the ripples of which are likely to reach as far as Ubatuba. Economically speaking this is great for the region, how it will be affected environmentally remains to be seen, but reports do seem to indicate that this consideration is being paid heed to in the planning.

Discussing the finer points of identification with Beatriz and Marcio .

I think it likely that many more visitors and workers from abroad will be coming to the region, and if any of them are birders they could do a lot worse than to contact these two young scientists.

If you are reading this and coming to the area I’d be happy to put you in touch with them, I will also be using them to guide in that region for me from now on.

Photos on this page copyright Rick and Elis Simpson.