I've had just about enough (or, quite accurately, more than enough) sad parrot news this week. So instead I will write a bit about a parrot success in Costa Rica. I intended to write about this last month when I got the May 2011 issue of PsittaScene -- the magazine members in the World Parrot Trust receive, but then life (and work) intervened.
When I looked at the cover -- wild scarlet macaws! It reminded me of our trip to Costa Rica in 2009. Imagine my surprise when I turn to the article: not only was it about scarlet macaw releases at the place we stayed (Tiskita Jungle Lodge -- highly recommended!), but it was written by the biologist who spent several days with us. She was an incredibly nice and knowledgeable person. She talked for hours with us about the macaws that had been released. It just so happened that we were there the week in May 2009 when scarlet macaws were being released, which was very exciting (though for security reasons, in case we were poachers, we were not allowed to know where the release site was.)
She had a photo album with pictures of all of the wild scarlet macaws in the area and she knew each of the approximately 50 individuals by name -- she could tell them apart at a glance. When we showed her pictures of the macaws we saw, she identified them and told us their stories -- the male was Dylan and the female was Red. Apparently there has been a shake-up, as the article mentions that Red is now with Big Boy -- there was no mention of Dylan. (You can see pictures of them here, which is the same as the second link above.)
She often joked that the lives of the scarlet macaws could be on a soap opera, and she regaled us with stories. We asked her to start a blog, and she said she'd been thinking of it. I'm not sure who's writing it, but there is one that has some stories of the wild scarlets now!
What an amazing trip we had; I would recommend a trip to Tiskita for anyone who is looking for a relaxing wildlife vacation. We can't wait to go back!
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Friday, 5 August 2011
Monday, 14 March 2011
Amsterdam birding
Before going to Amsterdam, we'd contacted Flevo Birdwatching to take us on a tour. They'd know the spots to go and be able to help us with identification of European birds. We were a few weeks too early for the migrants, who were mostly still in Africa, but we did get to see quite a few waterbirds and we were able to add quite a few new species.
Walking around town, we also caught sight of different birds, especially the Eurasian Coot, which was practically ubiquitous on the canals, defending its territory:
ETA: Here is a description with pictures of the differences. I can't really tell what the differences are, but they do have different latin names (Fulica americana vs. Fulica atra). The European coots seemed more aggressive than the American ones I've seen, but that could just be due to the fact that these guys are city coots and the American ones I've seen were country coots. Maybe that hardens them? :)
A few moorhens in the park:
Here are a couple of Egyptian Geese walking in front of the IAmsterdam sign (the IAm was curiously missing):
While lunching with our birding guide, this tit flew on to our picnic table and attempted to get some food from us:
Just some of the ducks on the pond:
It was so beautiful! The cormorants were nesting:
And there were a bunch of grey herons in the same pond:
A pigeon and a couple of gulls near the Rijksmuseum:
Though we didn't get any decent pictures, we saw ringneck parakeets at several different locations throughout the city. At first we thought they were quakers, until we got a better look.
It's so great to be back, though we did have a great time. Spring is approaching and our current birding adventures will be much closer to home!
Walking around town, we also caught sight of different birds, especially the Eurasian Coot, which was practically ubiquitous on the canals, defending its territory:
ETA: Here is a description with pictures of the differences. I can't really tell what the differences are, but they do have different latin names (Fulica americana vs. Fulica atra). The European coots seemed more aggressive than the American ones I've seen, but that could just be due to the fact that these guys are city coots and the American ones I've seen were country coots. Maybe that hardens them? :)A few moorhens in the park:
Here are a couple of Egyptian Geese walking in front of the IAmsterdam sign (the IAm was curiously missing):
While lunching with our birding guide, this tit flew on to our picnic table and attempted to get some food from us:
Just some of the ducks on the pond:
It was so beautiful! The cormorants were nesting:
And there were a bunch of grey herons in the same pond:
A pigeon and a couple of gulls near the Rijksmuseum:
Though we didn't get any decent pictures, we saw ringneck parakeets at several different locations throughout the city. At first we thought they were quakers, until we got a better look.It's so great to be back, though we did have a great time. Spring is approaching and our current birding adventures will be much closer to home!
And we're back
Thomas and I just got back from a week and a half in Amsterdam. I'd set up blog entries to post while we were gone to keep things interesting here. So sorry for not responding to comments -- I hope to get on that soon!
We had a great time, though the timing was poor as we'd been in New Orleans for a week, home for 10 days, and then gone again. This time, things worked out such that our bird sitter stayed in our house while we were gone. This was perfect as the birds got out almost as much as they would have had we been home!
Also, Max and our bird sitter have had a rocky relationship in the past, but this time together allowed them to become friends again.
Calypso absolutely loves her; he'd climb down his cage and look for her. He's probably sad we've returned. Also sad is Basil, our foster bird, who tolerates us, but loves her. The first day back, he'd strike at us when we walked past his cage, but things are back to normal now. It's looking like he'll be able to go home next month, though nothing is certain yet.
Our reintroduction into the house went very smoothly. I really think having her living in the house was key to this.
The greys were a little needy, and Stella had to regurgitate to both of us to let us know how much she missed us, but here's the scene a few hours after we were home:
Normally, they wouldn't have wanted to leave us yet for food, but in this case it was too tempting.
I hope to get caught up on comments, e-mails, and reading your blogs soon!
We had a great time, though the timing was poor as we'd been in New Orleans for a week, home for 10 days, and then gone again. This time, things worked out such that our bird sitter stayed in our house while we were gone. This was perfect as the birds got out almost as much as they would have had we been home!
Also, Max and our bird sitter have had a rocky relationship in the past, but this time together allowed them to become friends again.
Calypso absolutely loves her; he'd climb down his cage and look for her. He's probably sad we've returned. Also sad is Basil, our foster bird, who tolerates us, but loves her. The first day back, he'd strike at us when we walked past his cage, but things are back to normal now. It's looking like he'll be able to go home next month, though nothing is certain yet.
Our reintroduction into the house went very smoothly. I really think having her living in the house was key to this.
The greys were a little needy, and Stella had to regurgitate to both of us to let us know how much she missed us, but here's the scene a few hours after we were home:
Normally, they wouldn't have wanted to leave us yet for food, but in this case it was too tempting.I hope to get caught up on comments, e-mails, and reading your blogs soon!
Friday, 18 February 2011
Gulf coast recap
We just returned from a week-long trip to the gulf coast. The main purpose of the trip was to run a marathon in our 50 state quest, though we got a fair amount of birding in! The only parrot part of our trip was seeing quakers fly over us.
As for the marathon part, Thomas and I both set PRs! Mine was a 10 minute PR (to a sub-3:30 race!), and his was over 30 minutes! We have several marathons and at least one ultra-marathon (50 miler) planned for later this spring.
I think this is one of the best pictures I have ever taken -- a pelican, roseate spoonbill, and ibis all taking off at the same time. The only thing that would have made this better is if you could have seen the spoonbill's head, but her coloring is so distinctive, I love this picture anyway. This was taken from the car. (The day before the marathon -- didn't want to be on our feet much!)
That same day, we came across a dolphin. At first, we thought she was dying, as she was thrashing around in the shallow part of the coast, but we think she was just scaring up some food. We watched her for quite some time; she was quite agile. Every other time we've seen dolphins, they've been in a group, so hopefully this solitary one was OK.
We mostly birded and hiked post-marathon. It was so fun to see armadillos!
And this raccoon was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. He kept going up to the plants to see what might be hidden there.
Alligator!
Quintessential gulf cost picture. If I lived there, I'm not sure I'd ever get to work -- I'd just go birding all of the time.
We would have walked right past this nesting great-horned owl; luckily a volunteer at the national forest had us follow her and let us use her spotting scope:
In the botanical gardens, we were able to see this Buff-bellied Hummingbird. We'd spoken to one of the naturalists earlier who told us to look at the cherry blossoms to find him. We'd just about given up and were going to leave the garden when he appeared. What a treat!
This is a picture of one of our most exciting moments. We were driving along the highway when we had a feeling to get out and look. We had to traverse some pretty heavy brush, but it was worth it to see a flock of Black-crowned Night-Herons. During the day!
I love rails -- partly because they are so elusive and difficult to see. During our trip, we saw two Black Rails (different days), a Virginia Rail, and a King Rail. The king is the only one we were close enough to get some good pictures of:
Isn't she gorgeous? We watched her for probably 5-10 minutes until she slunk off. She didn't seem to mind our presence and we tried to be as unobtrusive as possible.
We had such a fantastic trip and are hoping to take a mostly-birding trip at least once a year. It was wonderful to spend a week outdoors, in nature.
As for our parrots, they survived our absence just fine. I haven't spoken to our birdsitter yet; I just got her written message. All of the birds behaved for her, with the exception of Max. I just don't get it. Max is our best-behaved bird when it comes to parrot-human relationships. But she does not get along with our birdsitter (who is an amazing person and wonderful with birds in general -- she's the main volunteer at the rescue.)
She left me a cryptic note -- "Max is neither winning friends nor influencing people." I will find out tomorrow what that means. This is just mind-boggling to me and I have to think of ways that she can win Max's affection before our next trip!
As for the marathon part, Thomas and I both set PRs! Mine was a 10 minute PR (to a sub-3:30 race!), and his was over 30 minutes! We have several marathons and at least one ultra-marathon (50 miler) planned for later this spring.
I think this is one of the best pictures I have ever taken -- a pelican, roseate spoonbill, and ibis all taking off at the same time. The only thing that would have made this better is if you could have seen the spoonbill's head, but her coloring is so distinctive, I love this picture anyway. This was taken from the car. (The day before the marathon -- didn't want to be on our feet much!)
That same day, we came across a dolphin. At first, we thought she was dying, as she was thrashing around in the shallow part of the coast, but we think she was just scaring up some food. We watched her for quite some time; she was quite agile. Every other time we've seen dolphins, they've been in a group, so hopefully this solitary one was OK.
We mostly birded and hiked post-marathon. It was so fun to see armadillos!
And this raccoon was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. He kept going up to the plants to see what might be hidden there.
Alligator!
Quintessential gulf cost picture. If I lived there, I'm not sure I'd ever get to work -- I'd just go birding all of the time.
We would have walked right past this nesting great-horned owl; luckily a volunteer at the national forest had us follow her and let us use her spotting scope:
In the botanical gardens, we were able to see this Buff-bellied Hummingbird. We'd spoken to one of the naturalists earlier who told us to look at the cherry blossoms to find him. We'd just about given up and were going to leave the garden when he appeared. What a treat!
This is a picture of one of our most exciting moments. We were driving along the highway when we had a feeling to get out and look. We had to traverse some pretty heavy brush, but it was worth it to see a flock of Black-crowned Night-Herons. During the day!
I love rails -- partly because they are so elusive and difficult to see. During our trip, we saw two Black Rails (different days), a Virginia Rail, and a King Rail. The king is the only one we were close enough to get some good pictures of:
Isn't she gorgeous? We watched her for probably 5-10 minutes until she slunk off. She didn't seem to mind our presence and we tried to be as unobtrusive as possible.We had such a fantastic trip and are hoping to take a mostly-birding trip at least once a year. It was wonderful to spend a week outdoors, in nature.
As for our parrots, they survived our absence just fine. I haven't spoken to our birdsitter yet; I just got her written message. All of the birds behaved for her, with the exception of Max. I just don't get it. Max is our best-behaved bird when it comes to parrot-human relationships. But she does not get along with our birdsitter (who is an amazing person and wonderful with birds in general -- she's the main volunteer at the rescue.)
She left me a cryptic note -- "Max is neither winning friends nor influencing people." I will find out tomorrow what that means. This is just mind-boggling to me and I have to think of ways that she can win Max's affection before our next trip!
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Traveler
Thomas and I will be making an unexpected trip to Europe next month. He found out yesterday that he was invited to present his research at a conference in Amsterdam. I'll be going along and we'll extend our stay by a few days to do some sight-seeing. We've barely been to The Netherlands before -- only when we went to the location where Germany, Belgium, and Holland meet and you can stand in three countries at once. I'm not so sure that counts?
In any case, we are doing some last-minute planning. Brian decided to help us out, but he seems to want us to go to the Baltics instead.
We are hoping to get some bird-watching in while we're there, even though it won't be prime season. Hopefully we'll have some great pictures to post!
In any case, we are doing some last-minute planning. Brian decided to help us out, but he seems to want us to go to the Baltics instead.
We are hoping to get some bird-watching in while we're there, even though it won't be prime season. Hopefully we'll have some great pictures to post!
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