Biological reserves creation

The project's goal is to create two reserves with optimal conditions for seabirds nesting. Our aims are to restore their natural ecosystem and we pretend to remove all the exotic species, and create the first endemic forest.

My first day as biologist!!

On Tuesday evening we enjoyed a spectacular opportunity among the citizens of Corvo. SPEA held third public meeting about our project where were announced the actions had been carried out in collaboration with farmers to test rodents eradication procedures. Early results showed the effectiveness of the methodology, however, must be administered by specialized operators. Taking advantage of this event, we gave back to Corvo's children their field books and show them a video of the activity carried out last saturday. We could easily note the great joy of the young guys. The meeting was also attended by the European Commission which had been visiting the village and the project over the last days.

Finally, we found Azorean Blueberry!!!

Today, Julia, the volunteer of the project went to Corvo Crater to seek for the Azorean Blueberry.
The Azorean Blueberry is an endemic plant almost extinct in Corvo. Many other plants that aren't from the island, such as Hortensia (very present throughout the archipelago), are decreasing the area of distribution of endemic species that needs especific characteristics to growth.


It was surprise!! Inside small streams we found several plants. Many of them with mature fruits and many others almost mature, which will be caught in mid September.

Collecting the fruit of this plant, characteristic for it's sweet and a dark Blueberry, will be a great help to increase the diversity in the biological reserve of the project. In this reserve will be planted Azorean Blueberry, Heather, Azorean Ceader, the Hollytree and Buckthorn bush.

Greenhouse fixing work!

The well known strong winds of Corvo island have been really painfully for our greenhouse. Especially at the time we were out of Corvo due Christmas holidays. Once again we must be thankful with Pedro Domingos who was looking after our greenhouse.

However, as expected, our greenhouse was waiting for a deep recovery work, which led us to spend sometime fixing all frames and to put on new plastic cover.

And so it was, his sleeves rolled up, everyone here at home get involved in this operation. Cut here and tie there, nails, staples and even peg boards. A couple of hours later, after hard work, our greenhouse was given new life. No more patches and stones to hold the ends of the cover.

Hopefully this new greenhouse will last much or more than the old one.

Lastly we must be grateful with Carlos Silva, who sent us the plastic cover from São Miguel island. The next package arriving here should be him. We are all looking forward to seeing you within our team.

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