The coastline of Brazil is one of the most spectacular in the world – yet most of us have heard only of Copacabana beach! But Brazil’s Atlantic coast is much more than a strip of sun drenched sand. There are strange sculpted dunes, remote rocky isles and unique tropical reefs.
The shallow seas hold a wealth of wildlife: – Humpback whales, prowling octopus and moray eels, Deadly snakes and spinner dolphins, All live along Brazil’s extraordinary coast. Brazil’s coast stretches nearly 7,500 kilometres from temperate southern seas to the tropics. It’s lined with wild rocky shores and tropical paradise beaches.
The waters here attract many visitors… Far out to sea, Humpback whales are heading north towards Brazil’s coast. The whales are on an urgent mission. They left their Antarctic feeding grounds three weeks ago, and they have been swimming non-stop ever since.
The whales have reached Brazil’s southern-most waters, but it will be another week before they arrive at their final destination. These southern Brazilian shores are pounded by wild weather. The waves churn up the sand And a chill wind, called the Minuano, sculpts the landscape.
Every year the wind and waves combine to create a large, fertile lagoon just inland of the beach. Huge flocks of birds take advantage of the abundant food in these waters. Many have flown thousands of kilometres from North America to feed here.
Sandpipers need the lagoons to build up their fat reserves before their long journey home. As do the rare Hudsonian Godwits. They use their longer bills to probe deeper into the sand.
The migrants mingle with the residents. The flamingos are filter feeders, stirring up the mud with their feet, before sifting the murky water for nutrients. The lagoon is so rich in food that the flamingos never have to leave.
This is the only place in Brazil where they can be seen all year round. But by April the summer visitors are ready to leave for their breeding grounds – Some as far away as the high arctic. The godwits will fly nonstop an astonishing 9000 kilometres – fuelled by the food of the lagoon.
On their journey, they pass the well-named Magnificent Frigate Bird. A true master of the coastal waters it soars effortlessly on its 2 metre long wings as it searches for food. It feeds on fish, without wetting its feet.
In fact, strangely for a seabird, it doesn’t have waterproof feathers. A landing in the sea could be fatal. They are amazingly agile flyers… … But for all their elegance, they’re not above piracy – trying to steal an easy meal from each other.
Magnificent frigate birds are found along the entire 7,500 kilometres of the Brazilian coastline. And they nest on many of the islands. But not this idyllic looking island.
A mere 32 kilometres from the mainland, Queimada Grande lies just below the Tropic of Capricorn. Yet no one lives on this island. In fact the Brazilian Navy forbids visitors.
And with good reason. The island is the home of this snake – the golden lancehead. It’s one of the most venomous snakes in the world.
And the island is literally covered in snakes. No-one has been brave or foolish enough to count them, but estimates suggest there are as many as 4,000 snakes on this small island. Another assessment calculated there is one snake for every square meter.
The golden lancehead’s closest relative is a snake that preys on mammals. But there are no mammals here, so the snakes have taken to the trees to hunt birds. No easy task.
This part of the coast suffers frequent rainstorms. And when showers sweep in from the sea, the birds dive under the canopy of the forest, looking for shelter… The snakes are waiting… They wriggle their tails – trying to fool the birds that there’s a juicy grub to eat. The golden lancehead senses prey by heat detectors in pits on its head.
In the cool of the rain, the warm birds are easier to find. The golden lancehead’s venom is 5 times more potent than that of its mainland relative – the snake needs to quickly kill a bird. For if a bitten bird manages to fly off it will never be found.
But the birds that live on the island all year round know to avoid the snakes. It turns out the snakes hardly ever catch these savvy residents. They rely almost completely on naïve birds – occasional visitors to the island.
The snakes go months without food. Queimada Grande offers no welcome to the frigate birds. A safer island is one rightly famed for its seabirds.
110kms north, or 10 hours on the wing from snake island lies Ilha de Alcatrazes. The frigate birds share this island with nesting Brown Boobies. Brown booby parents take turns to look after the babies and to hunt for fish.
The isolated islands are safe from predators, but they suffer the same unpredictable weather as Queimada Grande. Boobies nest throughout the year so there are chicks of all ages, and all suffering in the rain. The cold rain transforms the island into a bleak, drenched rock.
For the naked youngster, unable to regulate its temperature, the rainstorm poses a real threat. The parent needs to shelter the chick from the torrential downpour. The birds that bred earlier have a much older chick – more able to weather the storm.
And a good meal will boost its reserves… … although the parent takes some persuading. The younger chick is succumbing to the wet. The mother seems to ignore the baby, but the chick may now be so cold and weak that it no longer prompts an instinctive response from the parent.
The unpredictable weather makes choosing a time to breed a gamble – and there will always be winners and losers. But boobies are long-lived birds. Maybe next time her chick will escape the downpours.
The Brown boobies and frigate birds of Ilha de Alcatrazes range over huge expanses of the coast. They fly effortlessly over the migrating humpback whales – they are still steadily swimming at 5 kms/hr – but in a few days their marathon journey will be over The Brazilian coast is very varied, and in sheltered stretches, mangroves and mud dominate. The prop roots of the red mangrove tree trap and hold mud, which becomes a resource for a host of small creatures.
The most obvious of which is the Fiddler crab. It’s the males that want to be noticed. Their oversized claw is used as a signal to ward off other males and to attract more sensibly attired females.
The crabs’ biological clocks tell them to return to the safety of their burrows before the tide returns. After a journey of more than 4000 kms the whales have finally arrived. The Abrolhos Bank – over 70 kilometres offshore.
The whales have not come here to feed. In fact they haven’t eaten since they left Antarctic waters and will not feed again until they return in three months time. They are living off fat reserves.
They have come here to mate – and the males waste no time – chasing females and displaying to each other. Humpbacks are the most acrobatic of the big whales. And they are big… over 12 metres long and weighing 30 tonnes Sound travels well in water, so beneath the surface these displays must be hard to ignore.
The warm shallow waters here are perfect for corals, and the Abrolhos Bank is the largest and most important coral reef in the south Atlantic. The reef here is unique, for it has corals found only in Brazil. As these corals grow they form strange formations.
These are ancient species that have survived only here in Brazil, isolated from the nearest coral reefs in the Caribbean. The Abrolhos reef provides a home for a large number of fishes. Shoals patrol the open water above the reef.
Other smaller fish use the many nooks and crannies to hide from the bigger fish. The reef operates day and night. While many fish sleep, the corals are still active.
It’s now that they put out their tentacles and trap the many tiny creatures of the plankton. With fewer voracious fish around, it’s a safer time for corals and for crayfish. The corals thrive here in the 24 Celsius shallow waters And it’s precisely these conditions that have drawn the humpback whales thousands of kilometres from their feeding grounds.
Warm shallow water makes the ideal nursery for young humpback whales. Dwarfed by mother, a newborn humpback is still a big baby, over 4 metres long at birth, and weighing nearly 2 tonnes. Despite its huge size, the whale infant is vulnerable like any other baby, and needs the support of its mother.
The baby whale has little insulating blubber, and so the warm water is crucial, as is the shelter, as it learns to swim. The baby will spend the first year of its life with its mother. In that time the young whale has a lot to learn about humpback life, but there’s still time to play and frolic.
The baby grows rapidly. That’s not so surprising when its mother’s milk is 50% fat and the baby suckles frequently, consuming over 45 kilos of milk a day! Mother whales are very attentive, often supporting their babies when they surface to breathe.
It’s not just the whales that use the Abrolhos as a nursery. The islands are important for the Magnificent frigate birds as well. This is one of their main breeding colonies.
The males compete for females in a curious manner – inflating their chests and appearing like large animated balloons! The females survey the males from above, picking their partners whilst on the wing. The larger the sac and noisier the call, the more attractive a male seems to be.
The chicks will not fly for 22 weeks. For the first part of that extended infancy, both parents feed the chick. But after about 10 weeks the male departs, leaving the female all the work.
She stays and cares for her chick for another 9 months, even after it’s able to fly. It’s the longest period of parental care of all birds. Frigate birds are wonderfully adapted to their aerial way of life.
They can stay in the air for several days and nights, and may even sleep on the wing. In this manner they traverse huge expanses of sea. Which is how they reach the Arquipélago de Fernando de Noronha – over 2000 kms away in the tropical Atlantic.
The islands are remote and rugged. The few animals that have been marooned here, have, over millions of years, developed special ways of coping. This skink is only found on Noronha.
It’s ancestors drifted across the Atlantic, not from South America, but Africa. They were typical little lizards and fed on insects. But the Noronha skink has a broader diet.
In order to survive on the island it has found food in an unusual place. The lizard’s objective is the large flowers, over 9 metres up the tree. There are termites to eat, but the skink ignores them, preferring a drink of sap, before it continues its long journey.
The skink drinks the nectar and as it does, it’s dabbed with pollen. The lizards along with the local doves are the main pollinators of the tree. These are the kind of strange relationships that develop on remote islands.
Noronha is home to a pod of Spinner Dolphins. They return to the shelter of a bay each morning after spending the night hunting in the open Atlantic Ocean. Here they rest and get some sleep.
But sleeping dolphins don’t stop, they have to keep swimming and breathing! So the dolphins are not totally unconscious; only parts of their brains are ‘switched off’ at any one time. They stay in small groups; in this way there are always some dolphins ‘half awake’, with ‘one eye open’ for danger.
The dolphins are relatively immune from the tides. But the lives of creatures of the rocky shoreline are dominated by the pull of the moon. At low tide, huge waves batter the shoreline.
It looks like nothing could survive. But this crab does more than survive, it thrives amongst the breakers. The crab has the odd name of Sally Light foot.
Its streamlined body and strong legs help it hold tight to the rocks. It risks the surf to feed on the seaweed that is exposed at low tide. When the tide turns, and water rises, the crabs retreat preferring to stay on land than risk predators coming in with the tide.
They wait out the high tide, safe and dry, above the water line. Then as the tide retreats the crabs make their way back to the waters edge and their seaweed. But the tidal journey is more hazardous than it looks, for these rock pools are the home of ‘monsters’.
The crabs have to cross the ‘killing pools’ – they have no choice if they are to eat. The octopus even leaves the water and walks over the rocks to reach the pools. The crabs make the journey with every tide, so the killers know their routes… A moray eel slithers over the rocks to reach the pools.
The octopus hunts by stealth, using its incredible powers of camouflage. The eel seeks out a place from which to ambush. The crabs cross as quickly as possible Even walking on water in their attempt to avoid the waiting killers.
The moray eel lies in wait at a well used crossing point. But the crabs are called “lightfoot” for a reason – The monster’s patience pays off…. The surviving crabs reach the banks of seaweed, and get to eat and live another day.
But tomorrow the tides will return and with them so will the sea monsters. When the tide is high, the octopus leaves the rock pools and slips into deeper water. It is a shape-shifter; able to imitate rock and weed.
And even the colour of nearby fish … The octopus gains protection from the fish, the fish follow it in hope of sharing a kill. By late morning the dolphins are rested and they begin to play. Dolphins are highly intelligent and social animals.
One of the favoured games is ‘pass the sargassum weed’. This game may be a way of improving the co-ordination of the young dolphins and perfecting the skills needed to hunt successfully This is a time too for adult dolphins to chase about and indulge in a lot of touching and caressing. Several males will consort with a female, the male swimming upside down to mate with her.
The female can avoid unwanted interest by out-swimming the accompanying males, but often she chooses to stay and to mate and with several of her consorts. Below the playful dolphins a ray is searching for shrimps, crabs and fish that hide in amongst the rocks and seaweed. It’s often joined on its hunting trips by a companion, a yellow jack.
The ray’s electrical sense detects something… …The jack hangs on in anticipation that the ray will stir up something for it to pounce on. It makes for an easier life than hunting for yourself. But this time there are no scraps for the jack A haunting reminder of how wild and remote Noronha is are the shipwrecks found just off shore… The Ipiranga was a Brazilian Navy ship.
It’s become a surrogate reef and home to a wide community of fish. Snappers … and groupers patrol the decks In shallower water lies an older wreck, a Greek ship that sank in 1929. Shoals of Glassy sweepers now use it as a secure cave to hide in.
They feed at night and will only come out under cover of darkness. … smallmouth grunts are also night time feeders, staying in tight shoals for protection during the day. Noronha has its own unique wrasse.
They act as cleaners– picking parasites off larger fish – just like their cousins on reefs the world over. But the Noronha wrasse has had to adapt to life on these isolated islands. They shadow big fish, hoping they will frighten small prey for them to snatch.
They also follow the many parrotfish found here, picking up the ‘crumbs’ from the bigger fish’s table. The Noronha wrasse is a jack-of-all-trades, much more flexible than it’s specialist relatives – a necessity on these remote islands. The spinner dolphins hunt in the evening and into the night and so by the afternoon they start getting more active.
It is this spectacular spinning that gives these dolphins their name. The reason for the spectacular leaps is not known – it may be showing off, a courtship display, removing parasites. Perhaps a mix of all three?
These dolphins’ home is the sea around Noronha; but the great ocean wanderers, the frigate birds, range even further north. Here the Brazilian coast turns west and transforms into the most extraordinary landscape. Lencois maranhenses lies just 2 degrees south of the equator.
It is one of the largest expanses of dunes in the world, almost 1500 square kilometres of dazzling white sand. Away from the coast it looks like a desert. Yet even here animals try to make a living.
An armadillo searches the sand, hoping to pick up the scent of a scorpion or spider. It has an acute sense of smell and can detect food 20 cms underground, but these dunes offer nothing. With little prospect of food the armadillo digs a shelter from the fierce equatorial sun.
But this strange place is not a wasteland. For 7 times as much rain falls here than in a desert. and the armadillo has the scent of more rain.
The storm brings about a transformation The landscape changes miraculously, and creatures start to appear. Is it the moisture trickling down through the sand that awakens them? …we don’t know.
But somehow the terrapin knows it’s time to emerge. Odd-ball creatures surface from the sand, where they have remained for months since the last rains. They strike out in search of water But it’s a long way.
Eventually the toad and the terrapin reach the pools. But what can these new pools possibly hold? Amazingly there are insects and even fish – thriving in ponds that weren’t here a few days ago How is this possible?
Did birds transfer the eggs here? Do the eggs lie dormant in the sand? How most of the creatures get here is still a mystery.
Whatever the truth, the magical arrival of life to these dunes is one of the wonders of the world. All the creatures here have only a few months to feed before the tropical sun evaporates the pools and Lencois returns to its desert–like state. By the time the pools vanish the humpback whales will have set off, back down the Brazilian coast, heading for Antarctica.
The baby will continue to suckle for the duration of the whole journey…. … but the mother will not feed until she arrives in Antarctic waters, five months since she last ate. The coast of Brazil is full of strange animals, many are visitors or wanderers.
But all depend on the clean waters and riches of the seas.
