Impressions in sand and a tile....

Suddenly you see it and then there is more.

The fine pattern that looks like a zipper or a snake.

Or the ornamental like prints of wheels.

The curves on the beach like synchronous snakes.

Soon to be washed away by the sea, but the crowned fishes will leave their imprint on the tiles of the boulevard for seasons to come.

Enseada is Portuguese for bay

One of the beaches of Ubatuba (Brazil) is called Enseada: The Portuguese word for bay or cove. There are a few small roads to enter the beach. Almost there, the views of the sea, framed by trees and shrubs, look enchanting.

Enseada is a medium large beach. I never found it to busy. 

Out of season during the week it is quiet and almost empty.  Especially when the weather is not sunny, or even when the clouds keep hanging against the mountain wall of the Serra do Mar and the infamous rain of Ubatuba keep falling. This makes people refer to Ubataba as Uba-chuva (chuva = rain). To me even the darker weather has it's charm. 

On a cloudy day, out of season, you might be alone on the beach.

Some people just go to sit there and look at the waves....

When the weather changes and the weekend is near, the beach changes character completely.  The commerce takes over. The subdued tones of sand and sea are wiped out by the bright colors of the Brahma or Skol (Brazilian beers) chairs and tables.

 Like a ballet dancers the chairs are lined up for action. Let's hope it will stay sunny.

When you leave the beach, don't forget to look back for the last time and try to come back soon.

The ever changing "sandscape"

The miniature canyons, rivers, ridges that appear on the beach will be wiped out by the incoming waves. Just to reinvent themselves into other landscapes. Forever changing with the tides. Every time a completely new sandscape.....

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Birds on the beach

At the beach in Brazil one expects to find crows and seagulls. But look what comes along when people have a feeding place for birds. The food consisted of fruit: Mamão (Papaya), banana, orange, limão (lemon). The feeding table was under some trees, the weather was mostly overcast and I had to take the pictures through a window. Outside I couldn't get near without disturbing them. So the pictures are in no way perfect, but it gives an impression of the birds that were there. I had never seen any of the colorful ones on my earlier visits. After some study on the Internet I found that a lot of these birds are tanagers. 

Male Brazilian Tanager

Red necked tanager

Green headed Tanager 

Blue dacnis

I have no idea about these birds. Also a tanager?? or maybe a kind of finch??

Outside the light is so much better! These beautiful lapwings were all over the beach. 

Southern Lapwing

I love these small birds. One of the tyrant family. Masked water tyrant

This bright yellow tyrant was sitting near us in a beach hut. Probably waiting for something tasty. 

Great Kiskadee  (large tyrant flycatcher)

 There were seagulls, although not many.

Finally the scavengers... Here they call them crows, but they are  Black vultures .

This bag with garbage is waiting for the garbage truck that is arriving. The vultures are there first!! Impressive birds. This one is standing in one of the small rivers that run down form the mountains.

The end of a busy day?? Or just drying its feathers before the next job?

Give way to penguins!

The colony of Magellan penguins at Punta Tombo is famous. Lots of tourists went there. And many will come. In 2006 it was possible to walk anywhere. People would even touch the animals....the young are so cute!  I even saw a picture on the Internet of someone holding 2 chicks. The penguins,  already going down in numbers were to much disturbed by the increasing number of tourists. 

Now there are wooden walkways and clearly marked paths. A museum at the entrance of the park gives a lot of information about the penguins. Cars stay at the parking and a small coach brings you to the beginning of the route. 

There you are met by the locals ...... Yes, get aside! I am walking here.....   

Punta Tombo is an unique place if you want to see penguins. 

How fantastic to be able to see the baby penguin being fed.

Here the babes are fighting to be the first one.

An area with nest holes at Punta Tombo

 The beach is near...... and I was expecting the same large numbers of penguins as I saw 9 years ago..... How disappointing; this was the lot! Where did they go? 

These are pictures of the same spot 9 years before....

I had some local information, that the fishing grounds were less good. The younger penguins (these are the ones on the beaches) have to look for new fishing grounds about 400 miles away. A search on the Internet brought the same alarming news. The number of penguins at Punta Tombo is going down fast due to over-fishing and climate change.  Worse: In general 12 out of 17 penguin species are already in danger of extinction.  And note: this report dates from 2009, 6 years ago!!

From: TheWildlife Conservation Society feb 2009
Boersma’s data reveal that penguins at Punta Tombo are traveling farther to find food than they did just a decade ago due to changing ocean conditions and overfishing—particularly of anchovies, a favorite penguin food. This has forced some penguins to attempt to nest outside of protected areas where they often fall prey to predators. Meanwhile, changing weather patterns have also led to increased instances of heavy rains, which have caused high mortality of penguin chicks in five of the last 25 years.

All told, penguin numbers at Punta Tombo have declined by more than 20 percent in the last 22 years, from 300,000 to just 200,000 breeding pairs, Boersma said.

“Penguins are having trouble with food on their wintering grounds and if that happens they're not going to come back to their breeding grounds,” she said. “If we continue to fish down the food chain and take smaller and smaller fish like anchovies, there won't be anything left for penguins and other wildlife that depend on these small fish for food.”