Hello, my name is Michelle and I arrived in Corvo last Friday on the 11th of June.

I’m originally from Singapore, but now I am doing a Master’s in Conservation Science in Britain. My master’s thesis involves the development of an acoustic monitoring method to estimate the number of nesting shearwaters and part of this work will be conducted on Corvo.

We currently have four ARUs (automated recording units) deployed around the Azores, with two on Corvo. Every night over the next two months, the ARUs will record the calls of the Cory Shearwaters as they fly into their colony. I will then use a computer program analyse the recordings to determine the frequency (the number of calls per night) from each ARU.

The ARUs will be placed in sites with different density of shearwaters burrows. I will have to count all the burrows in a 25 radius circle around the ARU to get the number of the nesting population to determine the density of the site. I will then see if there is a relationship between the calling frequency of the ARU and the burrow density surrounding them.

If all goes right, there will be a higher frequency of calls around a colony with more birds. We hope to develop this acoustic monitoring method to get accurate estimates on endangered seabirds populations in the future. Many seabirds nest in inaccessible areas, or only fly in at night which makes it hard to conduct traditional censusing. Hopefully in the future we will be able to put out ARUs and get a better idea of endangered seabird populations.