Nobody warned me about pão de queijo!

These things are delicious!  How to describe - kind of like a cheesy scone, only immeasurably better.  Chewy, cheesy little buns, crisp on the outside, made from tapioca flour and queijo do Minas (or some combination of parmesan/mozzarella if you don't live in Brazil).  Maybe the greatest thing to come out of Minas Gerais apart from coffee.

Departamento de Ecologia da Universidade de São Paulo, 2º

My seminar managed to attract about 20 people - postgrads and postdocs - and was well received.  Better standard of questions and comments that at the IOC ...

And at lunchtime, my 150th new bird in Brazil - a Chalk-browed Mockingbird striding around in front of the lanchonete.

Departamento de Ecologia da Universidade de São Paulo, 1º

The Universidade de São Paulo on its city campus, a city in itself 'Cidade Universitária', is enormous.  You can probably see it from the moon - well maybe not.  The campus includes lots of secondary lowland rainforest, most of it fenced off from the masses as reserves.  Although you can see the huge panorama of high rise condominia that is São Paulo from high points in Cidade Universitária, it's palpably calmer, quieter and greener here.  Quite a pleasant place to be, once you've braved the traffic to get here.

Rainforest outside the Ecology building - with an Australian overstorey (Forest Red Gum Eucalyptus tereticornis)!!

I spent yesterday here in the Ecology Department at USP, and had a great meeting with Prof Paulo Guimarães - 'miudo' or kid as he's known (and is anything but a little kid!) - talking about the application of network analysis to some of my research questions.  This could lead to a very productive collaboration.

Ecology building, USP

It's a friendly department, from academics and postgrads through to admin staff (reminds me of a slightly louder version of UTas in that regard).  My seminar is coming up in about 90 minutes - more later ...

Flier for the seminário de estrangeiro!

Big bad São Paulo!

After the rural, faux-Swiss Alps idyll of Campos do Jordão, downtown São Paulo comes as a bit of a jolt to the senses.  Sampa is noisy, messy, frantically busy, and in the poorer neighbourhoods no doubt has a slightly menacing edge. 

Strolling down Avenida Paulista on a Sunday evening is fairly relaxed, as the paulistanos promenade their wardrobes and small fluffy dogs, but step off the glamorous strip and the international stereotype of Sampa as being grimy and labyrinthine is soon made fairly real.

Avenida Paulista - Sunday evening

That said though, stick to main streets where there are plenty of people, be guided by a sensible local, and keep alert, and it's not machine guns and bad guys at every turn (or at any turn for that matter).  I did hear some distant gunshot kind of sounds last night, from the safety of an 8th floor apartment - could have been fireworks too I guess, as they are popular here.

Bairro Bela Vista from Liberdade

Liberdade is the traditional Japanese quarter of Sampa, and there are lots of Nipo-brasileiro/a folk around.  It's steadily changing to Chinese/Korean as the older Nipo-brasileiro/as move out to other neighbourhoods or the interior of Sa Paulo state.  The next wave of immigration inexorably moves through.  Lots of theatres in Liberdade, including Sampa's Broadway equivalent :-)

I'm visiting Universidade de Sã Paulo today and tomorrow (giving a seminar in the ecology department tomorrow - Tuesday), and the Golder office on Wednesday.  Thursday - destination Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais ...

Wrapping up at the IOC

Last night (Friday, Brazil time) the long awaited urban birds 'round table' was held from 8 - 9:30pm.  About 55 congressistas turned up, which was an OK turnout.  The discussion ranged from the general to the particular, and few if any issues moved to consensus stage, except that everyone agreed that the discussion should continue towards the next IOC in 2014 in Tokyo.  I'm going to set up an online forum with the 50-odd email addresses that we harvested last night.  That's great, as it was what I anticipated would be the main (and most useful) outcome from the RTD.

The sessions today are the last in this IOC, and we have the congress banquet tonight - after which I'm off to São Paulo about noon tomorrow (Sunday).  My email access might be a bit hit and miss over Sunday - Tuesday, until I get to Golder's São Paulo office on Wednesday (Brazil time).  Thursday I'll be in transit from São Paulo to Belo Horizonte most of the day.

This morning I went birding out near the Horto Florestal with a couple of other congressistas, and amongst other things saw lekking Blue Manakins.  They are utterly bizarre and stunning little birds, and the lekking behaviour is unlike anything seen in birds of the Australasian region.

Until later ...

Os eleições

The Brazilian federal, state and local elections are coming up later this year, and it seems that the campaign runs for months.  On TV the campaign ad's come on in blocks - the workers party followed by the communist party, then the party for the mobilisation of Brazil (??), and so forth - talking heads giving 30 second sprays - like speed dating with aspiring politicians. 

So far there have been about 20 blokes and one woman - no make that two women - and I guess that reflects the gender ratio in parliament here.  Worse, but not enormously so, than Australia in terms of gender equality.  Most interesting though is that these ad's for ordinary parliamentary candidates run for free on commercial TV, by decree of federal law.  The standard of the production values varies a bit, but the time slots are identical per candidate.  Ad's for presidential and governor candidates are additional, and paid for.  Maybe that's the only way that you're going to get a communist party ad in prime time amongst the more vanilla offerings.  Maybe there's a lesson here that the Australian electoral system could learn ...

Parque Nacional do Itatiaia

Today was the mid-conference field trip day, and I was on one of three buses that set off to Parque Nacional do Itatiaia - Brazil's first (and therefore oldest) national park.  Itatiaia is huge, and contains a big chunk of the endangered Mata Atlántica (Atlantic Forest) on the lower slopes of Brazil's second highest peak (~2,700m).  It's in the interior of São Paulo state, on the border with both Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais states. 

After a leisurely three hour bus ride (Brazilian buses don't go all that fast), about 120 congressistas got dropped off at the bottom of a mountain, and we then proceeded to amble about 5km up the road to a restaurant at about 1,250m above sea level, through the rainforest.

The birds and mammals along the way were pretty fantastic - the Black-fronted Titi Monkeys didn't photograph so well with the snappy camera, but the Brown Capuchin monkeys at Hotel de Ypê did (see below).  Apart from charming food from tourists, they also haul up the bird feeders on to the roof and clean them out!

The birds in the feeder tray are Green-headed Tanagers - and they really do pulsate in that bright green colour in strong sunlight.

Dinner on the way home was a snappy affair at a roadhouse "Por Quillo" (literally "per kilogram"), but actually not bad.  As you go in they give you an electronic tag on which your purchases are recorded, and you pay when you leave.  So, grab a plate and load it up with picahna, feijão, sobremesas, cervejas ... get it weighed, and then pay your ~R$15 on the way out (about AUD$10).

Panoramic view of Campos do Jordão from atop the Morro do Elefante

Campos do Jordão from up at the top of the chairlift on Morro do Elefante

Marta - this cute little squirrel (a caxinguelê) is fairly common here

My turn at the IOC tonight ...

I'm on at 9:12pm can you believe it!?  There are 965 presenters at this IOC (counting posters), so that's how they fit us all in.  I'm hoping to be awake for the occasion, and maybe have an audience too.

Até mais tarde ...

Various, Campos do Jordão

Atlantic rainforest

Atlantic rainforest

Brazilian breakfast (cafe da mañha) - yum

Suiça brasileira in full effect (with Parana pines)

Black Vulture, Campos do Jordão

Black Vulture

Launch of the 25th IOC

Last night was the reception and launch for the 25th International Ornithological Congress.  The venue was a surprise - a bit like being at a stadium rock gig, with over 1000 people seated in the main auditorium, and two big video projection screens (drive-in screen kind of big!).  The speeches made mention of everyone who had ever had any role in putting the IOC on here, which took a while ;-)  There was one legitimate legend amongst them though - Prof Elizabeth Höfler has been working on bringing the IOC to Brazil since 1996 - she looked pretty happy ...

The real session start today (Monday) and there are about 950 people presenting oral papers or posters during the week.  If I'm lucky I'll see 30-40 of those.

Early morning in Campos do Jordão

Almost everything has bromeliads growing on it!

Pinheiros

Campos do Jordão (Capivari)

São Paulo to Campos do Jordão

The travelling is mercifully over for a while now, as I settle in to the oddity that is the venue for the International Ornithological Congress - Campos do Jordão.  When I say odd, I'm not joking!  Suiça brasileira as they call it here - a little slice of the Swiss Alps right here, 183km NNE of São Paulo (SP) in Brazil, at about 1700m ASL.  We have Davos, Baden Baden, etc, with the kitsch extending to the architecture and cuisine as well (fondue as far as the eye can see  ;-)  ).  More, with pictures, in days to come.

The trip was great - SP's metrô is fantastic, as many metros are.  From the pousada in SP I walked about 5-10 minutes to the Consolação underground station on Avenida Paulista.  Within minutes I had my ticket ($R2,65 for unlimited travel on the metrô until you go out a turnstile - which is about $AUD1.65), and was on my way on the green line.  The trains are fast, regular, clean and have very wide floors - lots of room.  Around there I met a couple of local guys heading to the bus station, and we easily made the transfer to the blue line, and were at the bus station, Rodoviária Tietê, within 10 minutes.  Tietê is the biggest transport hub in the Americas outside New York, so I guess it has the dubious honour of being the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere too???  Anyway, it is huge, and apart from buses and shopping, you can get your free 'flu vaccine and various other government social services.  It's quite a place.

The bus trip from SP up into the hills was great, I think.  Jet-lag caught up with me and I slept through most of the 183km!  I did wake occasionally to ID the odd bird - Chimango Caracara, Southern Lapwing, Great Egret, Burrowing Owl - two absolute cuties sunning themselves next to their burrow on a rough soccer pitch in São José dos Campos.

Picanha com legumes (steak and vegetables) for dinner, and now I must sleep ...

Australian election

I've just had a look at the ABC election site online - shouldn't have :-(

If Mr Rabbit gets even close to forming a government it'll be a big downer - luckily Brazil doesn't give a stuff, and I can try to ignore it too until I get home ...

São Paulo at last

The time between leaving NZ and arriving last night at the Pousada Dona Zilah in São Paulo is a bit of a blur really.  The LAN Chile flights were fantastic, the best economy class airline I've ever had the pleasure of travelling with (great cabin staff, leg room!!, good food, and an astonishing array of new and old movies, music etc. on the entertainment system), but getting to South America from the Antipodes is just long which ever way you slice it :-)

This morning I feel much better after some sleep in a bed ... this one.

São Paulo is noisy and busy, quite exciting really.  There are birds everywhere - the first I saw and identified were House Sparrows and Feral Pigeons, but hey it's a big city.  The first real bird was a Rufous-bellied Thrush (sabiá-de-laranjeiro) singing away on a powerline out front (ubiquitous I suspect), and there were flocks of small parrots of some kind roaring around over the traffic on Avenida Paulista - swallows, and various other LBJs.

Breakfast at Dona Zilah was excellent.  If this is the Brazilian standard, I like it.  About 10-15 kinds of bread, cakes, etc., with fruit, yoghurt, scrambled eggs, linguiça ... spiced coffee.  Last night I had a fish dish called Rudá with a kind of moqueca and banana farofa - fantastic.

I had my first foray out on to the Brazilian street this morning, and soon I'm off to the bus station by metro to get a bus to the conference venue in Campos do Jordão.  Next report from there ...

Takapuna, NZ

I've spent the last day and a half with the friendly folks at Golder's Takapuna office on Auckland's North Shore (NZ).  My plane leaves today at 16h40 local time to Santiago and Sao Paulo!