Our day started with a bird watching class in the forest where Eloisa taught us to be silent and patient while our eyes were getting used to distinguish the birds through the lights and the shadows. The most difficult part was to identify the birds (there are more than 1900 birds in Brazil!), to catch those details that will help us to define them. What was the size of the tail? Did you see the bill? Are you sure it had a red belly? Oh, did you see that! What was it? Was it a woodcreeper? Oh, that’s my favorite bird! These were the talks in the forest that morning.

The classes continued with the catching presentation of Andre about the mammals of Brazil and different methods to study them. Different kind of traps are used depending on the animals one wants to study but also depending on the objectives of the study – sound recording, tracks analysis, camera traps, radiolocation. We saw different types of cameratraps and learnt main rules about how to use them. On the next day we could see the effectiveness of one the traps – an opossum get trapped during the night on one of the trails but was quickly relieved after a few photos.

Tivemos a presença da professora Melissa, especialista em orquideas e nas relaçoes micorrizicas das mesmas. Podemos ver como ainda e’ desconhecido o mundo dos fungos e as raizes das orquideas, sabemos somente que elas tem uma relaçao simbiotica, uma coisa precisa da outra, como tudo na natureza. Foi uma bela aula, e desejamos que a Melissa consiga desenvolver muito mais sua pesquisa e nos ajude a preservar as orquideas e bromelias.

Nossa ultima aula foi com o professor Renato Feio, que em meio a uma aula descontraida, abordou sobre os anfibios e repteis, a herpetofauna. Podemos ver a grande diversidade que a Zona da Mata possui sobre essas classes, como eles se reproduzem, seus cantos, e algumas especies que chamam nossa atençao, algumas endemicas inclusive.

Ah, nao poderia esquecer, encerramos a noite com uma apresentacao dos estrangeiros, com nossa amiga Mariana falando sobre a cultura e peculiaridades da Bulgaria, seu pais natal, e depois com nossos amigos americanos Jen, Hayley e Caleb, falando sobre a cultura norte-americana.