Project = Go!

Oh hey!

BFFs

One of the new guys

This little dude was following me everywhere, I loved it!

These are some of the ones going to be released; they're hanging out in this little room waiting to be fed :)

The weather has been getting better the last few days, but apparently it is going to rain again this weekend! But that's ok, there will be lots of sunny days to come! I found out that the reason I didn't know what was going on Monday morning was because Joice (one of the girls working on the parrot project) was e-mailing the wrong address. She had sent out a message to everyone saying that they wouldn't start the project because of the weather we had been having. I would have been there to volunteer anyways - it is just nice to know what is going on.

Wednesday was another day of volunteering. I cleaned both the penguin areas while their fish was being prepared and thus gave me some time to have a little secret photo shoot with a couple of them! They keep the new ones seperate from the group that is ready to be released and they are a bit more affectionate than the other ones. There is one that could barely stand up on his own when I first got there and now he hobbles around trying to follow you everywhere you go! SO cute. Another one had either knife wounds or had been hit with a boat propeller and is healing up pretty well! One wound was on his back and the other on his right wing but now they are fully scabbed and clearing up. A couple more came in the last couple days because they had swam into oil infested waters and were absolutely covered. Such a sad sight to see.

After the penguins there wasn't much for me to do. I just helped change the birds papers and washed their dishes. A simple volunteer day. When I had gotten home I had received an e-mail from Cris (one of the vets) forwarding an e-mail from Joice saying that they were going to start the projects Thursday and she was inviting me to join them. I made sure to e-mail Joice back so that she had my phone number and proper address for next time and also to let her know that I would be there!

So today was spent catching and weighing their 22 birds and taking them to a seperate cage to see how each of them flies individually. This was done to get a preliminary rating (a scale from 1-5) so they can monitor how they improve over time. Manu (another girl working with the parrots) and I were sent to find pine cones and buds on the trees in the area and to collect a bunch for the parrots. They are trying to introduce them to the type of vegetation that they will see commonly in the area once they are released so that they will be more used to foraging from the trees. Other than that Manu and I didn't have much to do because Joice, Tais, and Sandro had everything they needed between the three of them. So in between each parrot Manu and I would sit on the side talking so I got to practice my portuguese! I think I'm getting better :)

Update on my project! The turtles have their own area separated from the tortoises now! The tub is now dug into the ground giving them more swimming area and they have a ramp that will let them have access to the natural substrate. But for now they aren't allowed to have time outside of the pool until we have all the primary measurements. Monday we will be weighing all the turtles, measuring their shell width and length, measuring the legions and taking pictures. After all the measurements have been done the turltes can run around wherever they want!

I was also given the task of finding papers related to the topic and summarizing them for Vanessa. I have found quite a few with where they like to spend their time, different skin problems, and even one about how to fix the "blindness" in some of my turtles! Turns out it's a vitamin A deficiency and with about 2 weeks of special care with cod liver oil added to their diet they will be good as new! I hope that they will be able to provide these things for these poor little guys.