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!

Tracking tunnels

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

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

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

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

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

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.