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

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