For me the day started extremely well with coffee….no one has designed a better drug for starting a day in my opinion and the coffee and breakfast the apartment staff organized was excellent. But this was a short rest-bit from the really work of sort through the previous days samples and before half eight we had established a production line; Mike and Me as e-archivists with iphone and tablet, John and Luis as worm identifiers and Marta as worm fixer!! While we did biology Mark sorted soil pHs and drying. We rattled through the samples individually weighing all the Amynthas and photographing exemplar samples both of Amynthas and other species. The Amynthas were individually barcoded (by the way Dan you are owed significant qualities of beer for printing the bar codes they have been a magnificent help). By 10ish we were sorted and ready for another day collecting worms.

The oil smoke that was emanating from Luis’s van had Luis all worried so Amindo pulled in a big favor and Joca, the department driver, left his family on their bank holiday Monday and collected the institutional 4-wheel drive to ferry us through the sampling track across the middle of the island. Again thank goodness for people giving up there time for the worm cause!!

Our first site was at the house or should I say small holding owned by Luis’s UG student’s (Hugo) family. They looked on whilst a group of daft scientists ripped up the soil at the edge of their banana field….but we had hit gold….or should I say Marta had and we had our first site with Amynthas and collect sufficient worms in 20 minutes….and our tails were up. But it wasn’t to last the next site we tried at was down a flooded track the result of a wild wild storm the night before and only the 4 wheel drive could make it…..I decided on this occasion not to even try the micra!! But try as they may our gallant worm hunters found nothing….so we moved on.

What more is there too say except we searched, some sites were fruitful and others showed meager pickings but mainly when we could find compost it was easy otherwise tough. A few things do still amaze me though; at each site one person seems to be the lucky one, although without doubt John is still worm catcher general by Marta is just a new generation of worm catcher…and they are starting to make them faster and more focused….so watch out old man!! I suppose I need to admit to have had a funny turn myself after catching my first Amynthas I got so enthusiastic with a hamok (Marta’s – but she was too nervous to ask for it back), I thought I had achieve worm catcher status…by I should have known I am but the lowest form of field biologist, a molecular genetists that’s just pretending!!

We used Amindo’s ranch as a sampling site which gave us the opportunity of being very British and stopping for afternoon tea.

Despite the rain the team morale didn’t waver and as if to reflect our mood the sun came out during the last too sites and it was a very tired but happy crew that headed for home after knocking-off 8 sites and collecting way in excess of 400 worms.

I took a detour on the way home and visited the super market to pick up essential refreshments and after a quick shower and pizza we returned to cataloging our samples…..but there were so many. We documented 6 sites before beer/wine and the day’s activities drove us to bed. The last two will have to wait till the morning.