Perseverance school
came in yesterday, and the children were fantastic. We brought them around the
farm and the centre, where they met the terrapins and Vanessa gave them a
presentation on turtles. After their lunch, we played a game to get the kids to
understand more about turtle nesting behaviour and the effort it takes. Half of
them threw themselves into the sand to imitate turtles coming up onto the beach
and dug their nests with their feet and the other half were in charge of making
little sand-balls (the turtle eggs). Overall I think it was a massive success,
the kids had loads of fun and so did we!
Other than school visits, we’ve had two terrapins be brought
to the centre as hotel staff saw them on the side of the road. Both were
sub-adult Black Mud Turtles coming from the same area. Thanks to the rain we’ve
been getting in the mornings this week, the terrapins seem a lot more active,
including the ones at the centre.
Speaking of the centre, I’m sad to report that the
tropicbird chick we were supposed to collect on Monday died on Sunday evening.
Tropicbird chicks (any chick really) are very fragile and in the end it refused
to eat. But in happier news, Project is continuing to gain weight and he’s
beginning to get dark patterns on his plastron much like a Black Mud Turtle.
He’s also becoming increasingly curious and pokes his head out of the water
whenever we pass by, begging for food.
We managed to get the hexacopter up yesterday, much to our
delight! Soon Vanessa will be training all of us to use the drones, which will
facilitate us with turtle patrol and mapping the wetland.
Read next week’s blog to find out more about Project and the
other terrapins and to hear from Irma, our volunteer!
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