IPBio Volunteer Blog

This morning while annotating audio recordings of the forest, I was suddenly interrupted by a cute, strikingly green hummingbird that found itself stuck inside the building.   As I tried to help the little guy out, I was able to briefly hold it perched on my finger before it finally made its way outside.   I continued working with audio recordings until after lunch, when Imran and I hiked up the steep trail to collect more bioacoustics data, captured a small tree frog inside the volunteer house to release outside, and planned a spontaneous weekend camping trip to PETAR state park with some of the other staff members and volunteers. It’s been two months since I first arrived in Iporanga and I can truly say that no two days here have been a like.   Between the interesting and diverse projects at IPBio and being fully immersed in an environment so different from home, I’m constantly surprised by the things I get to do and experience.   I’ll share a few highlights: ...

Our final weeks at the reserve were busy ones. Morgane was working nonstop to finish her second video and she entered a kind of sphere of solitude, wherein if you tried to interrupt her during a key editing phase you were in for a stern talking to. Meanwhile, my last week’s saw me venture back into the forest to help another volunteer with a tree inventory project. I will get back to this later though. What really made our last week’s special was a visit from professor Ariovaldo of UNESP University. Ariovaldo is a world-renowned bat specialist who, along with his team, came to stay at the reserve for a few days to monitor bat populations within the Atlantic Forest. This gave us volunteers a unique opportunity to see the elusive creatures up close and even help with the research process. Each evening we would setup a series of fine nets positioned in various locations across the reserve. These nets would capture passing bats and then Ariovaldo and his team would take them to the la...

Another two weeks have passed us by and regrettably we are fast approaching the end of our time at IPBio. I guess the old adage, “time flies when you’re having fun” does indeed hold true because both Matt and I agree that it really does feel like we’ve only just arrived. As the workweek ended we all geared up for Imran’s birthday weekend. The volunteers and the IPBio staff all met up for a few drinks in the early evening, and then we all made our way to an amazing fish restaurant. This restaurant was great for a few reasons. First, fish is hard to come by in Iporanga, and by hard to come by I mean, you just don’t find it. The locals don’t really have a taste for fish, and the ones that do either go to the fish restaurant or try their luck in the river. Second, the restaurant is located outside of the town in an area that we had never really ventured to, and it’s absolutely beautiful. Situated within a valley, surrounded by mountainous rainforest at all sides, with a pond direct...

My name is Matthew Dunlop and I came to IPBio as an assistant volunteer coordinator. My girlfriend, Morgane Holley, also came with me and she volunteered in the photography/movie-producing. This is us: Our first few weeks in Iporanga have been action packed to say the least. Each passing day is remarkable in the sense that no particular day is quite like the last. The work itself is both fun and rewarding. Morgane spends the bulk of her week filming and editing the other volunteers as they fulfill various tasks related to their roles. All of which is being compiled into a series of promotional videos. Check out Morgane´s volunteer video: For more videos look though our playlists: https://www.youtube.com/user/obbioadm/playlists My work operates on a slightly different schedule. Monday and Tuesday are spent in the office helping Imran, the volunteer coordinator, with his projects. Whether it’s updating the volunteer package to “just make it look sexy dawg”, helpi...

Welcome to the IPBio volunteer blog! My name is Imran Viroomal and I am the volunteer coordinator of IPBio. As prospective volunteers will work alongside me I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog off by introducing myself. I will then recount the tale of how I came to discover IPBio and the town of Iporanga which I now consider home. So first, who am I? This sounds like the type of question that is screamed up at the sky on a miserably rainy night while someone is going through some tumultuous soul-searching. I will try and stick to the facts. I am originally Indian, British, Bangladeshi and Spanish. I think the scientific name for this is a mutt. I was born in Spain, lived in the UK for 9 years, in Portugal for another 9, then moved to Canada to study at McGill University and then decide to relocate to South America which I will explain in more detail below. I believe that speaking both Spanish and Portuguese along with the fact that my formative teenage y...