Cover letter

Hello everyone,
I'm applying for a PhD position and it would be really great if someone could help me review my cover letter. English is not my first language, so all sorts of corrections (such as grammar) are highly encouraged! But also stuff such as choice of words and more concise wording are helpful. I'll also be really thankful for any advice on how to improve the cover letter as a whole.

Here goes:

Dear ***,

I wish to apply for the PhD program in Cognitive Zoology starting in September 2015. As of November last year, I am a graduate in Psychology from *** University, Germany. My academic aim in pursuing a doctorate in your group is to become a researcher grounded in comparative cognition research.

The focus of my studies lied on neuro-cognitive psychology, particularly attentional control processes in visual perception. More specifically, I wrote both my Bachelor's and Master's thesis on the attentional blink–a phenomenon central to understanding temporal aspects of attention. During my theses and research internships in the same domain, I gained experience in various areas of psychological research, including design, programming and conduct of experiments as well as statistical analyses. The studies involved gathering behavioral data such as saccadic movements during eye-tracking procedures. To prepare for a future academic career, I have written most research papers–including my theses–in English.
Due to excellent grades and ranking among the top two percent of my year, I succeeded in receiving a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation.
I also performed a research internship in ***, Germany, where I collaborated with John Doe and John smith on a paper on *** in American crows. More precisely, I was involved in experiment design, data collection, construction of apparati and video coding. My duties at the station also included non-academic tasks such as feeding, maintenance and organizing.

I am very enthusiastic about doing my PhD in *** as my ideal field of study attunes animal cognition and evolution-related research. I also greatly enjoy working with animals and especially corvids: work in *** gave me the opportunity to interact with American crows, jackdaws, a rook and a carrion crow. Even before that, I helped foster a carrion crow and other abandoned young birds. As such, I appreciate that your group's research is non-invasive.

In my free time, I like to spend time with nature-related activities such as hiking. I started doing volunteer work in conservation, helping out with landscape preservation and bird census. When possible, I love visiting other countries and spent one year as an au pair in Japan (living with an English-speaking host family) and three months in New Zealand travelling.

I am certain that due to my enthusiasm for the subject, I will be able to make a meaningful contribution to your research effort.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your positive response.

Sincerely yours