Wednesday, December 23, 2009

It´s Christmas Time

"We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas
We wish you a merry Christmas And a happy New Year.
Glad tidings we bring
To you and your kin;
Glad tidings for Christmas
And a happy New Year!

We want to see Mark and Steffan (from RSPB) in Corvo next January
We want some artificial nest for Shearwater in April
We want to see cats with chip and colour earring
Less rats in 2010
This is what Corvo wants".

We want to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a Great Year 2010.

PS. The greenhouse is still standing! thanks Pedro Domingues very much for your huge help.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

VI SPEA Ornithological Congress

Our last good bye turned out to be a long time away. Longer than expected and that is why we have apologize to our followers. We’ve been away all this time due to the IV Iberian Ornithological Congress and VI SPEA Ornithological Congress held in Elvas from the 5th to the 8th of December. Despite its complexity, due to the number of participants and international dimention as well as the presence of a fair with many stands, it went very well and all the participants left very satisfied.

I Fair "Natureza ComVida"

We also have some news from Corvo, thanks to our team from Corvo (one of our best values), Pedro Domingos and Sandra Mealha and I can tell you that despite the difficulties of the bad weather the greenhouse is still standing and the test fence is almost complete. So, the work there continues as planned.

While in Lisbon we will be sharing the office with the rest of the fantastic SPEA staff from the mainland and since Christmas is almost here we will stay until the 6th of January which is when we shall resume our life on the island of Corvo.

Cheers!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Hello,
The test area for the anti-predator fence is developping every day and we expect to have it ready next week.


We kept working in our green-house, did some tests with the rat bait boxes and finished up a lot of desk work. As you can see there are plenty of rats on the area chosen and they dont't seem to have problems getting in to get the bait.


Yesterday we also managed to collect some more seeds of native trees that we wanted to plant. It is hard to find some native species in Corvo, like the "Folhado" or the "Azevinho" but we managed to collect 1,5 kg of Folhado seeds and a just a few of Azevinho and Cedro (Juniperus brevifolia). We just have to put them on the ground and hope they will grow without problems. See you soon.

Azevinho (Ilex perado)

Folhado (Viburnum tinus) with seeds

Monday, November 23, 2009

The first international post .... globalization obliges


Usually the little details are the ones that count, and only at a closest look we can spot them. It's the sum of all the little things that generates real changes, those ones with a long term meaning. One good example are our little heather's (Erica azorica): at the first sight difficult to see, but in fact there are loads of them growing.
The winter in Corvo can be very hard and the field work has sometimes to be postponed. Nevertheless we still managed to monitor the Tamarix sp, to do the cat transects and test the rodenticide boxes.
We installed an infra-red camera to obtain images of the rodents that are attracted with the bait (peanut butter), to understand which species occur and if they easily enter the box.
In the future we will publish some of the videos.
And because, the weather "oblige" us to stay at home, the computer work has evolved a lot, meaning that the majority of the public awareness materials are almost concluded.
More and very good news, that let us very pleased, were the beginning of the works in the garbage dumpster, in order to build a proper place for the garbage and substitute the older one.
In parallel and using the machines that are working in the dumpster, the test zone for the fence against cats and rodents is starting to get its shape. This will help us to test the resistance of the structure to the winter and to test the effectiveness of the fence to keep the area free of cats and rats when the definite fence will be constructed in the communitarian reserve.
Speaking in the future... the first year of the project is almost ending, and the staff is almost leaving for the festivities in December. Of course, until there, there is still a congress, a GIS course and preparing material to bring to Corvo in January, among other things.

Best wishes to all....

Ps: this is our first post in english language and from now on we will try to keep it up to date... as this is not out mother language, some errors are to be expected ... for that we are sorry

Friday, October 16, 2009

Back to Corvo


Back to Corvo after a lot of travelling.
After the elections the village has regained its calm rythm and it is really enjoyable to come back after the busy days in London.




I managed to visit the Lodge (RSPB headquarters) and the place is really fantastic. A very nice work place with good conditions in the middle of a country area outside from London.

During the travel to Flores island we had the company of some dolphins...it was quite nice!

Our vegetable garden continues to give us some things and we are expecting oignons, carots, lettuces and cabages. The tomato plant is still giving a lot of tomatoes in spite of the ant attack.

best wishes from Corvo!

Ana Henriques

Monday, October 12, 2009

Corvo news

The bad weather of the last few days limited our work, but anyway we managed to:

keep the cory's nest monitoring. /6 out of the first 168 are still ocupied. We ringed the juveniles and took some DNA samples to test for bird flu.







The tracking tunnels seem to show that there are more rats around now than in April last.

We will start tomorrow in Flores some public awereness sessions of the "SOS Cagarro campaign" (Save Cory's shearwaters).

Cheers

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Still here

Hi,
we've been away for sometime, but the project as not stopped. We've just been busy with the inception report in Lisbon and also keeping the nest monitoring, the pit-fall traps for the insects and doingsome educational activities with the local school.
Ana Catarina went to england to meke some data analysis topgether with RSPB experts and she will be back in the island soon...we are anxious to know the first results!!

Cheers

Friday, September 25, 2009



Wa placed some cow ration inside the bait boxes to test their resistence to beeing open by the cattle.


Yesterday we did our monthly census of goats and sheep around the island. Just to show that here in Corvo work is sometimes a lot of fun!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Tracking tunnels


We started to place the 110 tracking tunnels spreadd troughout the island. And we had a lot of rat and mice footprints.


Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Cory's shearwater nest monitoring

We monitored 240 nests in a weekly basis since the begginning of May. Out of those 180 were occupied and we had 125 eggs layed. Since hatching predation of chicks by cats and rats has been high and only about 65% of the birds survived so far, with at least a month to go still for fledging.

To detect predators we deployed some motion sensor triggered cameras








Pedro

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Native plants and possible new work area

This week we were mostly occupied doing office work. Carlos planted the first seeds of Erica azorica and Myrica faya in the Greenhouse.
We went to prospect a new area that can be used to the project goals and that seemed quite interesting.







Some fishing trips were also very rewarding and we placed our cooking skills at test, once again passing with flying colors. Sandra came back from Flores and joined the team and pep came to visit and to help for a few days...with luck we will manage to give a few dives...




Cheers

Pedro

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

long weekend


After a long weekend at the pc writing the inception report we needed some relaxation moments. So... after a few dives at the port we participated in a volley tournament at the school gymn. Out of 5 teams we managed to secure a rewarding second place.
Zé Pedro was here for a few days giving a very good help in the report... in the end, because of the weather, he was almost caught here for a few more days....he managed to leave the island at the last moment. Thanks for all your help.
A very good discovery that's probably going to contribute a lot for the success of this team was that we are able to do a magnificent chocolat cake in the Micro-waves (!!!) in 5 minutes and using just 3 eggs (!). Thank you internet for all that you give us!!!
The only catch is...done in 5...vanished in 2 :-) .


Pedro

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Cattle shipping

Today it was the day the cattlle was shipped to the cattle market in Flores. It had to cross all the village with the help of a lot of people.

Regarding the project we were very busy with the executive commitee meetings and we just started the inception report that has to be quite comprehensive and to be ready at the end of September. We kept the nest monitoring and Carlos built a green-house for the germination of native plants.

See you soon!


Pedro

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Public session


Yesterday we conducted a public session to inform all the locals about the project. We had an audience of 47 persons that stand for about 10% of local population.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Corvo life!



We started a small vegetable garden in our yard.

We managed to grow some small mellons, tomatoes, cabages, spinaches and lettuces.




















Ana Henriques

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

End of August. The Manx Shearwaters get out of the nest

Yesterday we released some Manx shearwaters that fell into the village atracted by the lights.








Manx Shearwater








JB (Our neighbour's dog)



Monday, August 24, 2009

First post

Welcome,
here in Corvo island the Corvo Life project is in a good rythm. This weekend we were out of the island in the Flores island near by for some relaxation days before getting back to work.
In this blog we intend to give news of this project and of the life of the project team in this corner of the Atlantic.
See you soon
Pedro