Back to Corvo

Back to Corvo after a lot of travelling.
After the elections the village has regained its calm rythm and it is really enjoyable to come back after the busy days in London.




I managed to visit the Lodge (RSPB headquarters) and the place is really fantastic. A very nice work place with good conditions in the middle of a country area outside from London.

During the travel to Flores island we had the company of some dolphins...it was quite nice!

Our vegetable garden continues to give us some things and we are expecting oignons, carots, lettuces and cabages. The tomato plant is still giving a lot of tomatoes in spite of the ant attack.

best wishes from Corvo!
Ana Henriques

Corvo news

The bad weather of the last few days limited our work, but anyway we managed to:

keep the cory's nest monitoring. /6 out of the first 168 are still ocupied. We ringed the juveniles and took some DNA samples to test for bird flu.







The tracking tunnels seem to show that there are more rats around now than in April last.

We will start tomorrow in Flores some public awereness sessions of the "SOS Cagarro campaign" (Save Cory's shearwaters).

Cheers

Still here

Hi,
we've been away for sometime, but the project as not stopped. We've just been busy with the inception report in Lisbon and also keeping the nest monitoring, the pit-fall traps for the insects and doingsome educational activities with the local school.
Ana Catarina went to england to meke some data analysis topgether with RSPB experts and she will be back in the island soon...we are anxious to know the first results!!

Cheers

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.

Corvo life!

We started a small vegetable garden in our yard.

We managed to grow some small mellons, tomatoes, cabages, spinaches and lettuces.

Ana Henriques

End of August. The Manx Shearwaters get out of the nest

Yesterday we released some Manx shearwaters that fell into the village atracted by the lights.








Manx Shearwater








JB (Our neighbour's dog)

First post

Welcome,
here in Corvo island the Corvo Life project is in a good rythm. This weekend we were out of the island in the Flores island near by for some relaxation days before getting back to work.
In this blog we intend to give news of this project and of the life of the project team in this corner of the Atlantic.
See you soon
Pedro