Monday, June 11, 2012

New Volunteers




Hello everyone!!

We are Rosemary and Beatriz and we just arrived in little beautiful Corvo last week. Rosemary is from England and I am from Spain. We are here to develop our field experience in environmental science and management, which we studied at univeristy.We came as here as part of Ecotrain programme, financed by Leonardo Da Vinci from European Comission.

We are staying here for nine weeks helping the team of SPEA. We will be mapping the invasive plant species around the island using GIS and satellite photos, and wandering around surveying the vegetation and enjoying the amazing sourrounding views.

During the last week we´ve been learning already how to identify the plant species. We were helping as well programming and setting the ARUs that capture the calls of the Cory´s Shearwater breeding colonies. We were lucky to see a Cory sat on its nest inside a stony wall near the cliffs! And we also found one sitting on the path near the beach while setting the mammal traps at midnight.

We also have participated with the local children on a litter pick on the beach. It was very hot and sunny and we almost got burnt as we forgot to use any sun cream!! But it was all worth the effort, as the beach looked so much better. Afterwards, we went for a well earned coffee and a pastel de nata!!! This is an amazing Portuguese cake and had been made just a few minutes ago at the café.

This week we are hoping the fog will clear so we can start our project work mapping the plants, and keep enjoying such beautiful scenery!

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