Volume 52(21):233-254, 2012 LIST OF DOCUMENTED BIRD SPECIES FROM THE MUNICIPALITY OF UBATUBA, STATE OF SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL 1,3 RICK SIMPSON 2 VAGNER CAVARZERE 1,4 ELIS SIMPSON ABSTRACT Although preliminary surveys have been conducted at the Atlantic Forest of Ubatuba, there is no list of documented bird records from this coastline municipality. To organize such a compi- lation, we searched the literature and a number of different sources for all documented records of birds from Ubatuba, state of São Paulo. We further carried out a 7-year non-systematic bird inventory in different regions and elevations to document the species within the municipality. The total number of documented bird species is 417, 11% of which are endemic to Brazil. An- other 26% are Atlantic Forest endemics and as many as 60 species are under threat categories, including near-threatened birds, in the state. Some 49 species of 27 families are reported from the municipality but still lack documentation. Considering historical records, no species have extinguished from the municipality. Ubatuba is one of the most studied regions along Serra do Mar in São Paulo regarding its ornithology, but there are still high-elevational gaps that will yield significant additions of species to the area with increasing surveying efforts. Key-Words: Atlantic Forest; Avifauna; Documentation of records; Serra do Mar; Tran- sect counts. INTRODUCTION southern ombrophylus mist forests, also known as Ar- aucaria forests (Joly et al., 1999; Myers et al., 2000; The Atlantic Forest, a hotspot of biodiversity, Oliveira Filho & Fontes, 2000). The Atlantic Forest is originally stretched from the states of Rio Grande do recognized for its large number of species, ca. 1-8% of Norte to Rio Grande do Sul, following the Brazilian the world’s total species, and high number of endemic coastline and adjacent areas in Argentina and Paraguay, species, including 16% of its birds (199 endemics; encompassing 27 degrees of latitude. Very variable in Parker et al., 1996; Silva & Casteleti, 2003). Despite relief and rainfall regimes, this domain comprises at this biological richness, it is probably one of the most least three types of rain forests: ombrophylus forests, highly threatened tropical forests due to a long his- southern semi-deciduous and deciduous forests and tory of degradation and human occupation, which 1. Corresponding author: Rua Paulo Setúbal, nº 245, apto. 401, Itaguá, 11680-000, Ubatuba, SP, Brasil. 2. Seção de Aves, Museu de Zoologia, Univ. de São Paulo. Caixa Postal 42.494, 04218-970, São Paulo, SP, Brasil. E-mail: [email protected] 3. E-mail: [email protected] 4. E-mail: [email protected] 234 Simpson, R. ET AL.: Ubatuba birds resulted in 80% of endemic bird species being threat- Although known globally to birdwatchers, the ened and endangered (Lino, 1992; Goerck, 1997). birds of Ubatuba have briefly been inventoried and The state of São Paulo has two terrestrial biomes most of these records remain undocumented. Some (Atlantic Forest and Cerrado), as well as marine envi- attempts to produce bird checklists for Ubatuba have ronments. As a result, this diversity propitiates various resulted in several mistaken identifications, especially types of habitats for bird species, such as rain forests, due to lack of documentation. Here we wished to semi-deciduous forests, savannahs and inshore and compile all documented records of birds from Uba- insular habitats. With inventories that date as far as tuba, including museum specimens and recently the XIX century (Willis & Oniki, 2003), to date, São documented records while developing a 7-year non- Paulo has 793 species of birds recorded (Silveira & systematic bird inventory at many localities of this Uezu, 2011). The coastline municipality of Ubatuba municipality. We further specify the type of docu- lies largely in Serra do Mar, a large mountain range mentation (skins, photographs or recordings) for each and one of the last remaining continuous blocks of species. Atlantic Forest in the state. There have been bird in- ventories carried out at Estação Experimental de Uba- tuba in 1976 (Willis & Oniki, 1981) and by Goerck MATERIAL AND METHODS (1999), who published a list as part of her study of birds along an elevational gradient at the Corcovado Study area Mountain. More recently papers by Galetti et al. (2009) and Dario & Vincenzo (2011) were produced Ubatuba (23°26’S, 45°04’W) is a coastline about the birds of Anchieta Island and a remnant of municipality in the state of São Paulo, south-eastern restinga, respectively. Other records, including vouch- Brazil. Within the municipality (an area of approxi- ers housed in museums in different countries and field mately 712 km²) there is Atlantic Forest from sea trips between 1976 and 1997, have been compiled by level to 1,670 m, 83% of which is covered by the Willis & Oniki (2003), resulting in 359 terrestrial Serra do Mar State Park and, as such, is protected. bird species. It has borders with four other municipalities in the FIGURE 1: An arrow indicates the location of the municipality of Ubatuba, state of São Paulo, south-eastern Brazil. (1) Cambucá, (2) Fazenda Angelim, (3) Fazenda Capricórnio, (4) Folha Seca Road, (5) Itamambuca, (6) Perequê-açu, (7) Ranário, (8) Racho Pica-pau, (9) Serra trail, (10) Ubatumirim. Papéis Avulsos de Zoologia, 52(21), 2012 235 state: Caraguatatuba, Cunha, Natividade da Serra and sound files of Jeremy Minns, who has been record- São Luiz do Paraitinga, and another in the state of ing birds in the area for 15 years, greatly assisted our Rio de Janeiro (Parati; Figure 1). There is a significant research. amount of secondary forest, especially in lowland ar- eas. Little restinga (white sand forest) remains intact, but fragments can still be found. There are many riv- Literature ers that cut down from the Serra do Mar to the sea, providing estuary environments and some remaining We searched for articles, thesis and books or fragments of mangrove. Extensive marshy areas domi- book chapters on Ubatuba birds on Web of Knowl- nated by reed beds at the northern end of the mu- edge (http://pcs.isiknowledge.com) and Google nicipality add still more environmental diversity. The Scholar (http://scholar.google.com.br) using combi- coastline provides further species along the beaches, in nations of key words and title words: aves, avifauna, the bays and inshore waters. birds, Ubatuba. Undocumented records were listed The climate, ‘Af’ in Köppen’s climate classifica- separately (see below). tion, has two well defined seasons: a warm-wet season from October to April, and a cold-dry season from May to September (Almeida-Neto et al., 2006). Be- Field work tween 1961 and 1990 (climatological information collected by the Seção de Climatologia do Instituto We carried out opportunistic unlimited-distance Agronômico de Campinas in the Estação Experimen- transect counts from March 2006/January 2012. tal de Ubatuba), the mean annual rainfall and tem- Most observations started 10-15 min before sunrise perature were 2,624 mm and 21.9°C, respectively. and lasted for at least two hours. On some occasions During the warm-wet season, January was the rainiest we conducted transects after 17:00 h until after dark month (376 mm) while June had 87.9 mm of rain. to record nocturnal species. Bird records consisted of February was the hottest month (30.4°C) and July individuals seen, with the help of 8 × 40, 10 × 40 and was the coldest (12.6°C; Sanchez et al., 1999). 10 × 42 mm binoculars as well as a 30 times magnifi- cation telescope, and/or heard. To detect cryptic spe- cies we used the play-back technique. We conducted Data collection observations at several different locations encompass- ing different habitats and elevations. Each site is de- Documented records noted by geographical coordinates, elevation, a short description, dates and number of visits and sampling We searched for specimens collected in the effort in hours: municipality of Ubatuba in Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo (MZUSP) and Museu (1) Cambucá (23°22’S, 44°50’W; 15 m). Ex-sand de Zoologia da Universidade Estadual de Campinas extraction pit surrounded by intermediate and (ZUEC). Live birds reported from the Instituto Ar- advanced successional stages of Atlantic For- gonauta (IA) were also considered. IA is a Non Gov- est. Now forms part of Serra do Mar State Park ernmental Organization that rescues stranded and (SMSP) Picinguaba Nucleus. Visited 10 times injured birds attempting to rehabilitate them for fu- from January 2008-July 2010, 10 h; ture release back into the wild. The majority of these (2) Fazenda Angelim (23°24’S, 45°03’W; 19 m). specimens are found by the general public and either Privately owned conservation area at the base collected by the institute staff or deposited there by of Serra do Mar, formerly used as cacao plan- the finder. We also have included species that have tation. Contains intermediate and advanced been deposited at the Museu de História Natural de successional stages of Atlantic Forest with trails Taubaté (MHNT). Additionally, we were able to pro- that ascend the slope of the Serra do Mar up to vide much of the documentation with photographs 100 m. Visited 95 times from June 2007-April taken by ES, photographers known to us personally 2011, 475 h; and then by searching the archives of Wikiaves (www. (3) Fazenda Capricórnio (23°23’S, 45°04’W; 27 m). wikiaves.com.br) looking for birds registered within Privately owned cacao plantation at the base the municipality. We also researched sound record- of Serra do Mar where production has ceased. ings that had been made in Ubatuba on Wikiaves and Contains intermediate and advanced succes- Xeno-Canto (www.xeno-canto.org).