Our Latest News- October 6, 2025

Skala Field Station

We have now said our final goodbye to our last group of volunteers as the season comes to an end here in Skala. Despite the rainy weather, our volunteers worked hard to collect as much data as possible and make the most of their time on beautiful Kefalonia. Thanks to their effort during sand dune surveys, they surveyed 123 quadrats, bringing our grand total to 2006! Again, Pancratium maritimum was one of the most frequently observed species with 478 occurrences. For the whole season, however, our most commonly observed species was Elymus farctus with a count of 8003 occurrences across both survey sites. During our snorkel surveys, this group contributed 6390 photos to our final total of 77,904 seafloor photos – 15% of which were classified as Posidonia! Our beach clean surveys have helped us to remove 5956 pieces of debris from Mounda and Skala beach, and beach profile surveys have monitored over 12 km! These amazing results would not have been possible without all the hard work from our wonderful volunteers and staff – thank you so much! We already can’t wait for the 2026 season.

Svoronata Field Station

This week we have welcomed new volunteers who, despite the rainy weather, are eager to get stuck in and start mapping the sea floor on snorkel surveys, identifying new species of birds and ensuring the dunes are doing their job of minimising the effects of the storms. 

During a bird survey at one of our wetland locations, a volunteer was quick with the camera and managed to snap a picture of an Osprey! Everyone on site was really excited for them as this is a first for our Svoronata location! 

Recently the volunteers have started cleaning 2 new beaches, Minies and St Nicks. By cleaning and disposing of rubbish on the beaches we’re able to identify the most common pieces of rubbish, if there are any bins in the area and how the amount of rubbish changes throughout the seasons. 

Another important shift that we conduct is Beach Profile. This is where we measure the width of the beaches and see the changes throughout the year. At the moment the change is prominent due to the storms and rainy weather. Most of the beaches now are more narrow than what they were a few months ago. This is also why the sand dunes are important as they protect the back of the beaches. 

Lixouri Field Station

The season in Lixouri is officially finished! All of our nests have finished hatching, our last group of volunteers have just departed and we have closed up our field station for the winter!

Just before our last 2 remaining nests completed hatching, we were due a rainstorm. To protect the nests as best as possible, we constructed some temporary rain roofs to shield them from the rain! This proved successful as we had a very successful level of hatching from these nests!

Team Lixouri have had a fantastic season, with 148 nests in total, and 4,594 hatchlings helped to sea! We are sad to leave, but are already looking forward to the 2026 season!

Argostoli Field Station

Autumn has arrived in Argostoli, but our volunteers have been very good sports when it comes to embracing the wet and windy weather that we have been experiencing over the last few days. Our new group of volunteers arrived only a week ago, but they have settled in very quickly, already successfully helping over one hundred hatchlings to sea. 

When our volunteers aren’t out monitoring nests, the harbour, and beaches they have been spending quality time getting to know each other at various activity nights such as Bingo, Movie night, and Irish dancing.

We have successfully carried out yet another rescue in Argostoli harbour. An untagged turtle, now named Maui, was spotted on another routine drone survey. Maui had a 6.5 cm hook perforating his oral cavity, the team acted swiftly to remove this hook and safely return Maui to Argostoli harbour.