The pupils of Downe House School raised a fantastic £408.46 at their environment week to go to the painted hunting dog project, Zimbabwe.

Local music festival Summer Sunset generously donated £900 to Siren. The money will be used to buy football kit emblazened with wildlife logos for a themed football league in Zimbabwe. The project will use the power of sport to raise awareness about the threats faced by the team mascots (be they hunting dogs, hyenas or elephants).

Work began on a Community Conservation Education Centre, or Dog House! This incorporates an education centre for local inhabitants, a research station, a bush camp for visiting schools and a rehabilitation centre for injured dogs. This project will enable children from all over Zimbabwe to experience the national park and its wildlife perhaps for the first time, to see live painted dogs and learn about the importance of their wildlife through theatre, music and dance activities. The project is well under way, with many of the buildings near completion. Siren is working with the project to develop education activities and materials for the Conservation education project. Sasha Norris has drafted a dog storybook following one of the local dogs, Eyespot, through his life. The storybook will be used in the centre and distributed to schools throughout Zimbabwe. Bruce Lombardo, a teacher from Harare, has taken a year¹s leave to develop education materials and activities for the project. Watch out for our upcoming film on the dog project on 6TV The Oxford Channel!

Sasha Norris, Director of Siren and environmental broadcaster, led a discovery of the wetland at Hinksey Heights Nature Park. Families joined Sasha on an exploration of ponds and reed-beds, meeting the creatures that call them home and discovering why we should pay more attention to these often over-looked places.

Emilys sponsored skydive raised over £700 for local children to plant trees, which they will nurture throughout their school careers.

Siren donated more equipment, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, for teaching science in under-privileged schools in Oxfordshire.

Sirens Emily Shepard will be doing a sponsored skydive with 6 other biologists to raise further funds for the education centre at Hinksey. This will be filmed and broadcast on 6TV for the public to witness and for the team to relive and clutch their stomachs all over again! Collaborating with the Northmoor Trust, Siren donated and distributed 40 microscopes to schools in Oxford and Hill End Field Station.

A grant of £4,500 has just been awarded from the Awards for All New Opportunities Lottery fund, to fund the construction of a wooden boardwalk on the nature trail to increase access to the nature park for elderly and young people. Work will be underway throughout the summer.

Siren has been awarded £5,000 from the Ernest Cook Charitable Trust, towards the salary of an education officer at Hinksey Heights next academic year. This will ensure children can continue visiting and benefiting from the site. TV Energy recently visited the building at Hinksey to produce an assessment of the possible sources of renewable energy we could have at the site.

Darren Mann, expert entomologist from the Oxford University Museum came to the site to check out the interesting insect habitat in the nature park. He found plenty of potential insect hotspots and came back to introduce the children to some insects, which he retrieved from their hiding places with his special bug-hoover!

Ian Lewington, the fantastic Bird illustrator and County Bird Recorder for Oxfordshire is also lending his expertise to the project, by conducting four seasonal bird surveys onsite to produce a list of all the species that occur there. Ian has been studying birds for so long that not only is he able to identify them at a glance, he can also understand (and sometimes speak) their language. As small birds spend a large amount of time in the trees it is not always easy to see them, however they often advertise their presence with a song and so the best way to survey them, is to listen. Birds sing to ward off intruders, sing to attract females, sing to sound the alarm. The calls are all unique to each species, and once sung they allow us (or rather Ian!) to identify the singer. Here are some of the birds we identified: sparrow-hawk, buzzard, kestrel, blackbird, mistle thrush, firecrest, chaffinch, yellow-hammer, blue-tit, great-tit, greater spotted woodpecker, green woodpecker. Follow the link to see some of Ians bird illustrations www.ian-lewington.co.uk.

Emily flew to Mozambique to conduct three aerial surveys of the Bazaruto Bay area with Almeida. They saw a total of 43 dugongs, with a maximum of 23 in one 2.5 hour survey. These latest surveys are likely to yield a higher population estimate than that of 104 (made by WWF) in 2001. A report of findings from the trip will soon be available, so watch this space!

Siren will be using a grant from Columbus Zoo and Aquarium to conduct aerial surveys to help assess remaining dugong numbers and distribution. After the cyclones, the surveys are more urgently needed than ever. Almeida Guissamulo, Siren's Mozambican partner will lead the aerial surveys, and Emily Shepard from Siren plans to visit for two weeks to act as an observer.

From February to June each year around 1 million birds, including around 140,000 raptors, migrate en mass out of Africa, across the Mediterranean and into Europe. The Straight of Gibraltar is one of the two most important Mediterranean crossing points
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