20th of June – 24th of June 2016
Monday
The normal work has to get done, like feeding Chichi and
Eden, who is still not eating on his own unfortunately and so we have to force
feed him almost everyday, cleaning the tanks and cleaning up the centre. Also
the traps were checked and relocated as every day. Sadly, during the last
couple weeks, the traps were always empty and no terrapins were caught, the
same today.
After the normal routine was done, Rebecca, Imogen and I
went for crab hunting to the beach. The idea behind that action, was to get some
living and moving friends/food for Eden. After an hour we were totally soaked
and exhausted and had a good bucket full of different kinds of crabs and also
some Rockskippers. Unfortunately, the crabs were not that happy to be squeezed
into the bucket and therefore started to fight. Two crabs were already dead,
when we arrived back at the centre. Eden tried once to take a bite of the
biggest crab in the tank, what the crab did not really like and so run away.
Since then Eden never tried to get a crab or a Rockskipper again.
In the afternoon a big group of Chinese people came around
to check out the centre.
Tuesday
Not much was going on on Tuesday. During the morning we did
my first bird-survey. Basically we were walking around in the wetland and
counted all the birds which appeared. I spotted a Seychelles Kestrel, these
guys are not super common. Apart from that, we have not seen anything very
interesting.
In the afternoon we were doing some office work.
Wednesday
Usual stuff in the morning but we also cleaned and scrubbed
the tanks properly plus all the filter got washed out as well. Eden was still
not eating by himself. Inga started to put out traps at the Grand Police-bay.
Rebecca and I were helping her to set them up but unfortunately they were empty
at the end of the day. It was fun anyway to get a ride in the back of the truck
and to discover the beautiful natural wetland behind Police-bay.
In the afternoon we started the drone for Inga and she did
her first drone flight. All the batteries from all the different machines were
not charged though, therefor this was a short first practical exercise. Inga
did a very good job and was super excited about it.
After that, we relocated the traps and went home.
Thursday
Thursday was a very easy and creative
day. Vanessa was working in the north and Jonny was not feeling well. So
Rebecca, Imogen and I were the chief-operator in the office. After the usual
cleaning in the morning, we started to draw some nice pictures (wildlife
related) to paint them later on on the wall outside the centre. After the traps were in the right spots we
started our creation.
In the late afternoon some Chinese visitors came around and
had a quick look around, we could not really explain something to them as they
are not speaking English very well.
After we finished our paintings we fed Eden and took the
traps out.
Friday
After the tanks were clean and the centre was looking good
as well, Vanessa took Imogen and me to two beaches where we did the
beach-profiling, which has to be done every month. With the help of two poles,
a tape measure and abney level the erosion of the beaches can get measured.
During this time of the year, the south of Mahe is pretty rough and therefore,
the beaches are very eroded and not much sand is left, compared to the other
half of the year, when the northern part of the island got the rough weather.
Some manager of the Banyan tree hotel are worried because the erosion, but
looking at the data from the previous years, the beaches are not more eroded than
the years before.
After lunch we started an other try to fly the drone. This
time we went to grand police bay. Everything went fine and we did a great
video. At least we thought we were making a great video, in the end nothing was
recorded unfortunately, as we forgot to press the record-bottom.
There was a group of Russian visitors supposed to come
around 2pm but they never showed up. So we left the office at 4pm and were
happy to have weekend now.
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