Ear tags for wild cats

To distinguish sterilized cats in recaptures, all of the wildcats captured must be marked before being released to avoid the psychological and physical stress suffered when are subjected to further surgery.


 
We have selected an international system for tagging feral cats, ear section of the apical part of the left pinna. This cartilage area is very little irrigated and does not suffer bleeding and, therefore, very difficult to infection.

In the photo you can see a female sterilized last week sunbathing on a rooftop in the village of Corvo.

Olá,

We are Jannes and Jakob and decided to use our free time between our biologic studies to help in the SPEA project on Corvo Island. Me, Jannes, I am 23 years and currently studying Biologie in Kiel, Germany. And me Jakob, I am 21 years old and going to start studying Biologie in Bremen, Germany.
After school we both volunteered in the Wadden Sea of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, became best friends and developed same interest like Marine Biologie as well as bird watching.

We arrived on Corvo on friday 23rd of july and are going to stay for almost two months.
Our main task in the project will be focused on nest-investigation of Cory´s Shearwater and we will give a hand in any situation where it could be useful.
We already took all the kind people and of course the funny sounding Cagarros to our heart and we are looking forward to some wonderful weeks in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

"Biologia no Verão" - Discover the activities on Corvo island at this Summer!

Between June 15 and September 7, the SPEA, in partnership with Ciência Viva, has a variety activities related to biodiversity of Corvo Island. Entries are FREE and must be made through the website of Ciência Viva - www.cienciaviva.pt.

On 10 and August 24, and September 7 will be held the activity "Discovering the Azores laurel." Participants will have the opportunity to meet the remaining natural flora on Corvo, while they learn with simple gestures can help in their conservation.

During the mornings of 20-22 August, participants can see up close, and feel in their hands, small birds that come every day or hear from far, in parks and gardens. The activity will take place is "Discovering Birds around us" which aims to feature some aspects of conservation and take interested parties to participate in a technique long used by experts worldwide for the study of birds - capture using miss-nets.

Trying to get further help!

As mentioned previously, we are monitoring cat activity around the colonies of Cory's shearwater using automatic cameras with infra-red sensor. This work results in lots of pictures that need to be processed. This is where you can be really helpful. It is a great help even if you can spend just a couple of hours per week.

The processing can be done from your home and you just need an internet connection and the Microsoft Excel program. Below is an example of one of the cat pictures recorded last week.

If you are interested, get in touch to receive more information.
Just comment on this post or send an email to nuno.oliveira@spea.pt.

Cheers!

The Spotlight

Last night we went around the island to count cats. The survey took place between eleven p.m. and one a.m.
We were able to find five cats during the survey with the spotlight; one of wich was eating the remains of a dead Cory's found dead next to the road.

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Cagarros colony (Calonectris diomedea) - João de Moura pinnacle. Corvo island

Cagarro's close-up image

Canto do Pão de Açucar

View from the sea...

Cory's shearwater peaked at posture a few days ago!

The same six Cory's shearwater colonies monitored last year by Ana Henriques, whose results are ready to be discussed on her Master thesis, began to be visited this year after Cory´s arrival in mid-March. 99% of the occupied nests last year were also occupied this year.

In Corvo, peak egg laying occurred on June 11 while last year it was on June 4. A week of difference compared to last year. Weather conditions could be the main cause, as we have seen in other places. However, it is too early to have concrete data on how it will be the breeding success of Shearwater this year.

It seems that some couples have trouble finding a hole to nest as you can see from the picture.

A few days after the peak of egg, some depredations have been detected.


We will keep the blog up-to-date on the current breeding season of Corvo Cory's!

A sound recorder arrives at the project!!

At the end of last week, we put on a cliff an automatic sound recorder for the birds in the Corvo island. The recorder was placed on the cliff near the Pingas area, which tends to listen Estapagados frequently.


This method can show what kind of seabirds use that area, and by comparison with the vocal activity recorded in other more accesible colonies, it can help to determine the size of the colonies in Corvo. If this method gives satisfactory results, in the future can be used recorders like this for the detection and quantification of the seabirds colonies.

Radar continued...

As you observed the June 8, the effect of radar exceeded all our expectations, so here are more pictures of this action on the blog.

These are images that me and Pedro, the project coordinator, saw in the monitors. They collected the amount of cagarros who were in the areas covered by the radar. The yellow dots mark the number of birds, and the blue dots the speed of flying.




The radar was placed at different locations into the island. On land we choose points on the cliffs, to capture better the nocturnal movement entering and leaving the nests, to understand the possible differences in habits. Finally, we put the radar on a boat sailing around the island, and we get better and more accurate measurement of cagarros residing in Corvo island.

The result was an entire success, the radar technicians and Pedro Geraldes were satisfied with the hard work at night.

The location of birds, plus the complexity of them, brings to these events a very important step. We must consider that it is the first time that is performed this type of seabirds monitoring in Portugal.

Seabirds detected with radar!

National and International experts visit Corvo Island to test innovative systems for monitoring of seabird behaviour

This week a group of specialists is in Corvo island to test innovative techniques to detect seabirds using radar systems.

The study of seabirds has many technical difficulties to researchers, which are often difficult to overcome. Its nocturnal behaviour, together with the breeding habit of building their nests in burrows in the ground, often in inaccessible cliffs, makes it impossible to determine the size of some populations.

SPEA teamed up with Portuguese and foreign experts, to use radar detection techniques to study these birds for the first time in Portugal. The detection and study of birds using radar had been used for monitoring of wind farms and in studies of the New Lisbon Airport, although the detection of flying seabirds, due to their habits and places of occurrence, present other challenges and increased difficulties for their study. "For the first time we may know how many birds use the cliffs, which areas they prefer and whether it is possible to ID different species at long distances and without actually seeing the birds." says Pedro Geraldes, the project manager.

The results will determine the future operations of the project and might be an important milestone that opens new doors to the study of such birds in the archipelago."If we get good results with the use of radar, new possibilities for the study of seabirds in the Azores and elsewhere in the Atlantic will open up and will allow us to know details of the life of these birds that until now were impossible to determine" affirms Pedro Geraldes.

La Paparazza arrived

On Friday morning arrived one more element to our project team.

Maria Vazquez is from Sarria, Lugo Province, and born in 1984, graduated from the University of Granada in Audiovisual Communication, having previously completed her studies in Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Valladolid. She conducted several courses related to photographic and video editing.

Her work will consist in performing audiovisual and photographic reports on the different activities of the project that are currently underway, that will be used for the dissemination of the project.

Over the next six months we will have full coverage of entire project, as well of flora and fauna of Corvo Island. She will be something like a second shadow of project staff people.

Hopefully well be given to Mary around here.

Looking for cats and who look at them!

As mentioned previously, last month we began monitoring the activities of cats around the colonies of Cory's shearwater. For this we use automatic cameras with infra-red sensor. This work results in a few thousand pictures every 2 weeks that need to be processed. This is where you can be really helpful.

The processing can be done from your home and is just needed an internet connection and Microsoft Excel program. Below is an example of one of the cat pictures recorded last week.

If you are interested, get in touch to send you more information.
Just comment on this post or else send an email to nuno.oliveira@spea.pt.

Cheers!

Technical visit from New Zealand to Biological Reserve of Corvo

Although the tests to the anti-predator fence have been successful with regard to mice, the same was not true regarding rats and cats. In view of these difficulties, we found ourselves in need of resorting to Xcluder, a New Zealand expert team in erradications and anti-predator fences.


It was with this objective that during this weekend a technique of Xcluder, Jo Ritchie, visited Corvo Island. Meanwhile we were walking around the boundaries of Raven Biological Reserve where we want to build the anti-predator fence, Jo was indicating possible problems and consequent solutions due topographical features and the typical hard weather conditions of Corvo Island.

Jo, Pedro e Sandra

The concluding remarks we got from Jo were very exciting and hopefully we have the Biological Reserve of Corvo fenced and free of predators before the end of this year.


Greetings from Corvo.

Hello, we are Jamon and Cecina!

We arrived in Corvo nearly one month ago, but the time has passed very quickly! The island is especially precious and we feel very comfortable.


Our work here involve different ways to search invasive plants on the island, to locate it and, if necessary, remove it to avoid the displacement of native species such as Urze Erika azorica and Cedro-do-mato Juniperus brevifolia.

To do it we use maps of the island divided into grids of 200 x 200 meters where we record patches of exotic vegetation.

Yesterday we got more than 200 Faia-da-terra Myrica faia were placed in a grid of transplants in the greenhouse.

The fieldwork is always rewarding, but also the time spent with a project team and the population of Corvo, who have been lovely since day one!

Julia Herrera e Javier Roma

Welcome Javier and Julia

The last two ribs of our team came directly from Spain, more specifically from Madrid. Javier and Julia, or Jamon e Cecina (their nicknames in Corvo), are students of Forestry who came to complete their practical course with us. However they have been very helpful in other activities of the project. Their sympathy has led them to integrate easily in the team and have been very well accepted by everyone in Corvo.

Project is news in «Público» - a Portuguese newspaper

Ecosphere came out today in a news story about various actions that have been unfolding in Safe Islands for Seabirds project. Also underlines the new artificial colonies created and the plan to make Corvo Island a predator free island.

http://ecosfera.publico.pt/noticia.aspx?id=1433700

Tests to anti-predator fence follow the right track!

As we wrote before, in early March had put a couple of wild mice Mus musculus into the area to test the anti-predators fence. Action that proved the effectiveness of our fence as a barrier to this species. Not so good results we had at the end of March to test the fence in relation to trasposability by cats.

fig. 1 - Ship rat Rattus rattus

Last Saturday we started testing whether the fence would work as an effective barrier to another species of predator introduced in Corvo Island - the Ship rat Rattus rattus (fig. 1). Once again the fence has proven effective. And our new tenant appears to be quite relaxed in their new home. Today we left another ship rat into the area to demonstrate the true effectiveness of the fence (fig. 2).

fig. 2 - Ship rat Rattus rattus

Meanwhile we have started improving our fence to test whether it can effectively contain cats as well.

Regards to all.

Building a Model of the Cliffs of Corvo Island

As already mentioned above we want to built a model of the cliffs of Corvo to establish Cory's Shearwater habitats on the cliffs. To do that we will drive around the island by boat and take pictures of the cliff which will then be digitalized in a Geo Information System.

Left: 3D figure of Corvo Island

Right: 2 merged photos in a Geo Information System

Wednesday we finally had only little wind, waves, clouds and a boat with skipper available so that we could get our first pictures. We started on the Westside and did a row of 25 pictures from a distance of 300m but tested as well distances of 100, 200 and 400 meter. We shot the pictures with two different cameras in two different formats. The cameras are: the new waterproof Fijnpix Z33 WP and a Canon Power Shoot A610. And now lets just hope for a row of nice days next week.

atalog
(The correct form is «Até logo», but it's how sounds like to our Volunteer Eva Immler and means "See you later" in Portuguese, Portuguese language is not an easy language at all)

Eva Immler

Cooking science

Hi everyone!

With Cory's shearwater already around Corvo Island and taking into account the results we had last year on the predation of eggs and juveniles, for this year we are trying a new approach to study the impact of rodents in the reproduction of Shearwater.

Why cooking science??
Because that is what we got up to yesterday afternoon, as you can see from the photos. If we wrote an article about the scientific activity of yesterday, the keywords would be made paraffin, chocolate, bath, pan and cuvettes for making ice.



In order to understand the activity of the rodent community around the Cory's colonies of Corvo, we will make grids of wax blocks. Just as a little note, we will build any wax wall around the Cory's colonies. In recent years this technique has been increasingly used to study the activity of rodents. On one hand the results have been very useful and this approach has been revealing to estimate accurate abundances of rodents, the other is a low-cost technique.

In practice this technique consist in put on field small pieces of wax (with attractive for rodents - in our case was chocolate) as a pre-defined grid. After a few days all the cubes are removed and examined in order to account for the marks left by rodent bites. As each species of rodent has a characteristic dentition structure, it is still possible to know which species occur around the study areas.



Looking forward to overcome some limitations that arose last year in this part of the project.

Keep tuned!
Regards.

Spring has just arrived to Vila Franca do Campo Islet

SPRING HAS ARRIVED

First Cory's Shearwater picture for the Islet in 2010

March, spring has arrived, with many vestiges of the cold winter though. And with it also the swallows arrive, in the case of Azores, mean Cory's Shearwater arrived (Calonetris diomedea borealis) for one more breeding season.

Between January and March 2010 were installed on the island 150 artificial nests for Little Shearwater (Puffinus assimilis), for Madeiran Storm-petrel (Oceanodroma castro) and for Cory's Shearwater (Calonetris diomedea borealis).

Artificial nest for Cory's

It was made one night monitoring the nests and already can hear the call of Cory's that invade the island and they do fill life with profiles in night flight there is demand for their nests. The last monitoring took place last weekend when we found 44% of 199 Cory's nests already with some signs of occupation. In which, one of the couples already looked at one of the new "costs controlled houses" - name suggested by the volunteers who helped count the nests on the island.

During this month we started the control of exotic vegetation, releasing the space occupied by it for Cory's nesting to later be replanted for endemic plants. But due to bad weather and rough sea has not been possible to advance the work of eradication. At the same time, native plants are being grown in nurseries SPEA through LIFE + project "Laurissilva Sustentável". Already germinated about 2500 plants to restore the endemic vegetation of Vila Franca do Campo Islet.

Some information campaigns took place in Vila Franca do Campo region for the first school students of 4 different schools. We aimed to demystify the infamous "hairstyle of the islet" and talk a bit about marine birds that occurring there. A total of 68 students participated in these activities, and did show big interest for our project. These actions were organized by the Municipality of Vila Franca do Campo.

Information campaign in Vila Franca do Campo (foto: Ana Borges)

2-1

The closed zone wins over cats 2-1 and stays top after 3 tests completed.



The closed area climbed two places in the last test.

The first cat got off on the right foot with a 0-1 victory against closed area. The next clear chance of the game was better for the closed area, however, the second cat did not create real danger to closed area and we have to release the next day.



The closed area was able to dribble the attempt of the third cat who carried out rapid and high jumps in the core. We hope that one can not reassemble!

Rats will be the next opponent of the closed zone, who does not have ratings in the Test League.

Navigating the storms

Hello comrades!

Only 3 days remaining to enter the Spring season and still there are many storms in Corvo.

In the biological reserve of
the project was installed an electric fence around the artificial nests, squares of vegetation and pit-fall traps for insects. Thus we have prevented the interaction and possible destruction of the work done by cattle, and even with days of strong winds and rain, all experiments started are intact.



This weekend, we began to build the nests of Cory’s shearwater. While nests of Storm petrel, Little shearwater and Manx shearwater were made with flowerpot holder, tubes and plastic covers, the nests of Cory’s shearwater will be built with blocks and cement caps, thus we want to ensure the increase of breeding sites over a longer period of time.

We still have a few hours of night work because of the use of traps to catch wild cats. We got a recapture last night. The cat had already chip and had been sterilized three weeks ago so it was a great opportunity to leave it into the closed area and test it, as we already did with mice.

Finally, we would like you to introduce our new partner for the project. Her name is Eva and she is from Germany. Eva will be in Corvo until next May to survey the vegetation of the cliffs through photos that will be taken from the sea. Desires of many days of calm sea and good job Eva!

Happiness for all!

Trapping rodents!

After the long-awaited arrival of Sherman traps, we can begin trapping the larger rodents as well - Ship rat Rattus rattus and Norway rat Rattus norvegicus.
As we had already published earlier, last January we began trapping Wild mice Mus domesticus in Biological Reserve of Corvo, High Biological Reserve and 2 non-intervention areas at different altitudes (30 and 400 m above sea level). With the arrival of Sherman traps we could twice enlarge the trapping grids for 25 Sherman and 24 Pest-stop and so also start trapping Rattus sp. in order to estimate the variation of the density of rodents throughout the year.
The grids are set in field like next photo. Of course the small Pest-stop go unnoticed amid the huge Sherman.

Biological Reserve of Corvo

The results were not slow to appear. Wild mice are being high caught in lowland areas where yesterday we already captured the first ship rat.

Wild mice Mus musculus

Hopefully able to post some data soon.
Hugs

Cats, sardines and sleepless nights...

The cat traps arrived! Last week we finally started trapping feral cats. Along 4 consecutive days, the traps are placed in different locations on the outskirts of the village of Corvo, where wild cats often wander. We leave a bait in the traps to attract the cats, in this case we use canned sardines (a delicacy!) and await eagerly for the first watch to the traps, when we can actualy check if a cat was caught.

Every 4 hours we check the traps, to prevent the cats from staying too long in the cold, rain and wind, which means that we've been going through a couple of sleepless nights, waking up at 4am, but of course we do it willingly and can never get enough of it!

The first night could not have gone better, we caught 2 cats! We transfered them to the veterinary clinic, where they were in a quieter and much warmer environment than in the bitter cold of the past few nights here in Corvo.

The next day, the cats were anesthetized, neutered and identified with a microchip. We also registered some relevant data such as gender, age, colour, characteristic marks and their general state of health. During anesthesia, we cut the tip of the left ear of each cat, in order to distinguish cats that are already neutered from those which are not, making it easier to release recaptured cats and spare them from more stressful moments in the traps.

Once the cats regain consciousness and are wide awake, they are released in the same area where they were caught and return to the wild.

After 4 nights trapping cats we were able to neuter 5 adult male cats. This week we placed the traps elsewhere at higher altitude, where many barns belonging to farmers exist, and we hope to continue with success.

We cannot thank enough to our dear friends Tiago and Nuno for the effort they've done to help us instaling the cat traps and checking them every night... so thanks for the fellowship!

Meanwhile, the number of spayed domestic cats has reached 43 cats (about 2/3 females and 1/3 males) and keeps on rising, little by little...

The Azorina vidalii and the Vaccinium cylindraceum are two endemic plants and very simbolic from the Azores.

The first in rare in Azores with a good population in Corvo Island. The second specie is very common in the Azores and rare in Corvo Island.

Yesterday, February 24th the staff project has developed some activities with these two endemic species.

With the Vaccinium cylindraceum we are searching for a small population that has the characteristics and conditions to collect small samples to recolonize the Biological Reserve from the project with woody endemic plants. The search were conducted in the northeast of the island. No population were found. Until now, only small and isolated individuals were found and them do not have de desired characteristics. Apart from the cold that has been felt on the island, new prospection will be carried out to try to find the desired endemic :)

Biological Reserve

The Azorina vidalii were replanted in order to rescue a few numbers that will be destroyed with the work of expansion of Corvo Airport. The action of planting had the help of the students and teachers from Corvo School. Around 30 specimens were replanted on the Biological Reserve, inside the boudaries from the Corvo Natural Park and the Biosphere Reserve of Corvo. Similar actions will be carried out to rescue a few more plants.

Students planting

Studentes from Corvo School

Thank you to all for participating and the amazing dynamic of all studentes, teachers, inhabitants and the Director of the Natural Park of Corvo Island.

Small & green

Against the forces of gravity and spending all their energy reserves, small green dots are emerging from a sterile surface, which is struggling to survive in one environment where the "luck" has led them.

Since the beginning of the year, these little green dots have emerged, one by one, here and there, creating a contrast of colors and life, covering the brown substrate of our mini greenhouse, untill better conditions will arrived.

The real greenhouse, larger and with better conditions has not yet arrived. It will be installed at Corvo School. Is still in transit on Flores Island. The sea conditions have not allowed it's transportation as well as all the supplies and goods that comes to Corvo.

These small plants will grow in a controlled environment and when they reach the suggested dimension for the specie, will be planted on our Biological Reserve. We hope that many of them will survive, as a small part will perish, due to the process of selection and adaptation of each specie. So far 230 Myrica faya and more than one thousand Erica azorica has germinated. We hope that other species, Juniperus brevifolia and Viburnum azorica, will follow the same path and contribute to diversify the species on our small nursery.

Erica azorica

Myrica faya

Testing predators-proof fence of Corvo's Biological Reserve

As we have mentioned before, last year we began testing a fence to use around our Biological Reserve Corvo. In December 2009, the employees of the Corvos's Council built the test-fence, 6 by 3 meters.



In January we started testing the test-fence by inserting 2 wild mouses Mus musculus within the fenced area to realize whether it's able to contain this species. Was installed a camera with motion sensor (IR) to capture possible leakage.

Despite initial failures, it seems that we finally got a wild mouse-proof fence. After some design changes on the test-fence on last Wednesday, February 10, we insert again 4 individuals in the fenced area, none of which managed to cross the test-fence until today.



This step represents an important victory in the construction of a fence impenetrable by predators of seabirds.

The test has followed all animal welfare rules.