parrot training, mosquito nets, and busses

The weather has been a bit sporadic this week. It started out with me having to use three blankets at night, then 90 degree days and hot nights, to crazy hurricane winds on Wednesday. Variety is good, I guess.

I started training Jack, the non-releasable red-lored amazon parrot, by using positive reinforcement last week. I haven't actually done any training before, with the exception of dogs, so this is a new experience for me. The purpose is to get him used to being poked and prodded so that examinations aren't so stressful. Thanks to Tracy, he already knows "step up". I've started using a stick instead of a finger so that he will eventually "step up" onto the stick in the carrier for transport. He loves peanuts as a reward, but is easily distracted and often ends up crawling up my shirt. That's a little.. unnerving since he tries to bite sometimes. Have you ever been bitten by a parrot? Or seen a parrot's beak? No thanks. Tips and tricks for training would be greatly appreciated!

I moved into my new, permanent room on Thursday. My previous mosquito net had two flaps which I could open in order to get in my bed. My new mosquito net has no flaps so I have to un-tuck the net in order to get in the bed. After this experience, I will never take being able to simply get into a bed for granted. In case you ever need them, I have compiled tips for how to get into bed in the tropics: first, pull back the corner of the mosquito net at the bottom of the bed so you can thoroughly check all of your sheets. Second, check all of your sheets inside and out for "visitors" (tarantulas, scorpions, other miscellaneous creatures). Next, grab your iPod Touch (who knew it could be so useful?) or flashlight. Turn off the light and use your iPod touch for illumination. Climb into bed - don't forget to check for visitors again! Tuck in your mosquito netting from the inside, using your iPod Touch to see. Make sure you have all the excess netting tucked completely in so that nobody tries to eat you whilst you sleep. Oh, and make sure you use the bathroom right before you tuck yourself in... because doing this at 3:00 AM is NOT awesome.

Friday was my first solo adventure. I walked to the bus 'station' (ie people standing around) in San Ignacio a bit later than I had intended. Two or so hours and two bus rides later, I reached Blue Hole National Park. I hiked around for a bit, got eaten by mosquitoes, met some people (Canadians, Belizeans, and Americans), and went for a swim in the blue hole. I walked about a mile up the Hummingbird Highway to the first entrance; I was going to check out the cave but the bus was due any minute so I didn't have the time. The area was beautiful, to say the least. I'm saving the second trip for when my sister comes to visit.. definitely going spelunking! Get ready. The bus system is fairly simple... you basically stand on the road and flag down a bus going in the direction that you wish to go. Apparently I looked like I had no idea of what I was doing (which I didn't) so people offered to help. Everybody here is unbelievably friendly and nice. I ended up being serenaded with church and 80's Madonna songs by a man who absolutely detests animals. I tried to explain how animals and nature are important, but he just laughed and probably thought I was crazy. How do you communicate the importance of wildlife and the environment to a culture where the majority of the people just make garbage dumps on side roads?

Today I tagged along on a trip out to the field to monitor a pair of Orange Breasted Falcons... amazing. Another field study starts in a couple of weeks that will involve trapping and putting radio collars on a wide range of mammals and, time permitting, I'll be a volunteer field assistant. I've been wanting to get some field experience for years now so I'm pretty excited.

Tomorrow I will be attending a final draft revision meeting for amendments to the Wildlife Protection Act. I haven't actually done anything legislation-wise before but hopefully I can give some input. Pretty crazy the opportunities I've had since I've been here..

mayan ruins and a jaguarundi kit

Busy week! This is going to be quite an extensive update so prepare yourself.

There is good news this week for CASA patients! The barn owl was released on Tuesday with the help of our two volunteers who drove her up to Orange Walk. She looked great on her pre-release exam so we built a make-shift carrier and sent her on her way. We're down to eight parrots as our only patients now... I'm sure about ten birds will come in all at the same time now.

On Friday, the two volunteers and I were picked up in a sad little car to drive past Benque and into the jungle. Our mission was to try and reunite a jaguarundi kit with his mom. The hydro-workers who were clearing land had found it; word is that they had scared off the mother. So this sad little car (the driver's side window had just shattered out of nowhere moments earlier) that had already cut off once on the way to CASA, didn't look too promising once it was noticed that it was dangerously close to overheating. We pulled over to a gas station and added some water to the radiator (brave mechanic, seriously) and started on our way again. We made it to Benque and it started overheating again. Another gas station and buckets of water. It actually cut off this time, but the engine temperature had dropped considerably so we opted to continue on. Five minutes later and it was obvious that there was no way this car would make the ten mile, extremely rough drive into the jungle. Enter my first Belizean cab ride! At least an hour and a half after the start of our journey, we finally made it to the supposed site where the kit was found. The volunteers gave some fluids and camouflaged the carrier about a third the way up the hill where we were told that the kit was found. We waited for a bit and did some birding (a keel-billed toucan and a family of aracaris) until our ride showed up. It was decided that we would leave him overnight and have the eco-village check on the kit first thing in the morning. Long story short and the kit was out of the carrier by 10 pm Friday night. Nothing was out of place and no vocalizations were heard so we're hoping that it was a success. Ideally, the kit would have been observed all night but that wasn't an option. Where ever he is, he's better than being in captivity. Thanks to Better in Belize for helping out!

Saturday we walked down to San Ignacio to go to the market and look around. We had made a friend when roaming around town the night before; it's overwhelming how many stray dogs are here. Many of them are very sweet, especially the females. This particular one bounded up to us when she saw us at the market. She eventually got distracted by some snacks left around the market. We picked up another friend who followed us around all of San Ignacio while we searched for Sweet Ting (a delicious and dangerous bakery - with air conditioning!). For future reference, never feed a friendly stray dog or you'll never escape. After some evasive techniques, we finally had to just take a cab to make sure she didn't follow us back.

Our awesome volunteers held down the fort on Sunday while Tracy and I made our

way to the Mayan site of Xunantunich. This site was amazing. A lot of it had been excavated but some of the dwellings and other structures were left as the Mayans intended. Xunantunich actually survived the collapse of the Mayan empire and continued on until about 1000 AD. The Castillo was the main temple which overlooked all of the city with a beautiful view of Belize / Guatemala once you climbed up to the top. We ended up seeing two Black Howler monkeys in the parking lot right before we were about to leave. My first wild primates! On Tuesday, we headed to El Pilar to do some birding at sunset. El Pilar is a predominately unexcavated Mayan site so all of the structures appear as vaguely shaped mounds and hills. It's more forested than Xunantunich with quite a few lookouts over Belize and Guatemala; half of the site is in Belize with the other half in Guatemala. We hiked up to the main lookout for the sunset and some birding. It was eerily quite with few birds around, but I can't complain. We walked back through the woods / jungle in the dark. Creepy? Yes.

I bought a bike today! I bought it from a kid for $75 BZE. The tires are bent and the brakes probably need to be redone but I'm hoping it'll take me further than San Ignacio.

Tomorrow is my day off. The plan is to take a couple of busses to the Blue Hole (not the infamous dive spot). This one is Blue Hole National Park which is located off of the Hummingbird Highway near Belmopan. There are some caves, hiking, and the sink hole from which the park gets its name. It'll be my first adventure by myself and my first attempt at the bus system. No worries, I'll have my cell phone just in case.

Tracy flew back to Canada yesterday. I am now the official Avian Clinic Manager. I'm a bit terrified, but I've got support all around so I think it'll be fine. I hope.

various animals and more downers

On Friday, I successfully received my volunteer visa. Nothing crazy happened, only a three hour wait because there was a huge line and only one immigration officer. Because of the ridiculous wait, we were only able to stop by Belize Bird Rescue for a few minutes. They currently have a tamandua (soon to be released) that was captured in a seizure by the Forest Department. I held her for a few moments but I didn't get any pictures. Go ahead and google some images... they're really cute - anteaters with prehensile tails!

It's been a down week for the patients of CASA. Yet another difficulty with rehabilitation here is the lack of an x-ray machine. The chachalaca went into surgery on Tuesday to repair her fractured leg. There's only so much you can do with palpation on a leg with massive infection (unlike mammals, birds have solid pus so it's harder to diagnose when infection is involved). After some debriding of the infected area and assessment with her under anesthesia, it turned out that her bone was in multiple pieces and unsalvageable. Some birds can survive with only one leg but chachalacas spend a lot of time foraging in trees and doing some acrobatics in order to reach their choice nutrients. We decided it would be most humane to just let her sleep. The tern was put down today as well. He had shown no improvement in his eyes since the first few days and they need perfect eyesight in order to fish. It's hard when you've spent so much time on a patient. And the owl... oh, the owl. A victim of the lack of transportation. She's had a soft tissue injury to her intertarsal joint (the first joint above the foot), presumably from being extremely active and antsy at night; she's also injured her cere (the base of the beak). We did some rearranging and placed her in a more suitable aviary. While it's still a bit swollen, we've opted to give her a few more days and then release her ASAP so that no other injuries occur. All of the parrots were caught up on Tuesday for weights and physicals - they're all fat and happy. Well, not so much happy. They were pretty adamant about vocalizing their thoughts (cusswords, no doubt) when being handled. These guys are beautiful though. I really should have taken some pictures when when were checking out their wings. The intricacy and variation of color is amazing.

This past week wasn't too exciting. We went out to eat in San Ignacio on Saturday for Tracy's birthday. We went to an ex-pat bar afterwards and met some new people. It's a very small country, so everybody pretty much knows everybody else in the conservation circle. Tuesday was spent wielding a machete (collection of perching material) and herding a pig off of the property (who reappeared the next day and was then lassoed and taken away). Two rehabilitation volunteers from California arrived yesterday to spend the week with us at CASA. They've worked with quite a few barn owls so they've had some advice for the current situation. Anyway, they're my excuse for not writing a very in depth blog this week. Sorry! Next week I will focus on the positive and have some uplifting things to say... and post more pictures on Facebook. Oh, and we may have a baby jaguarundi staying the night tonight. The hopes are that he/she will be reunited with mom tomorrow!

up and downs

As promised, this week was quite busy... and a bit depressing. Friday started out on a rough note as the army ants had succeeded and gotten past our defenses. We found that the two poor Ruddy Ground Doves had fallen prey to the ants sometime in the night. Poor little guys... I don't want to imagine what they had to go through. We're now working on a way to better spot the ants so that we can react faster and keep better tabs on their whereabouts. The only upside to Friday was being able to help scrub down the Green Iguanas at San Ignacio Hotel. It was interesting, as I haven't ever worked with iguanas. Some of them were fairly docile and enjoyed their scrub down, while others whipped their tails (I got a light whip to the face) and tried to eat us.

Another frustrating part of working rehab in Belize is the transportation and communication. We got a call on Friday that a Barn Owl had been caught in Orange Walk. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the owl until Sunday night due to some miscommunication amongst other things. She was severely dehydrated but in good spirits (and by good, I mean feisty). Other than dehydration, she has no obvious injuries and is flighted. We're not too sure what happened to her, but possibly a slingshot or she ran into a window. She's eating quite well and is pretty intent of attacking us. On Monday, Belize Bird Rescue handed off a Chachalaca (fun name, right?) that has a broken leg. It's an older break that will need surgery, but the veterinarian wants to go for it. She was emaciated, but we've been tube feeding her and she was a bit perkier this evening. As for the Royal Tern, the prognosis isn't too great. It's more than likely cataracts, but we're giving him another week to see if there's any improvement.

In other animal news, I forgot to check my shoes before putting them on the other night. Surprise! There's not one but TWO tarantulas in my shoes! The first one I found with my heel (gross) and the second was found when I realized I should probably shake out my shoe. Poor little guy... my fat heel squished his little leg. How is one supposed to rehab a tarantula that's hardly the size of a quarter? At least I won't forget to check my shoes again.

I've started compiling a list of things that I wish I knew how to do before coming to Belize. So far I just have two items: fishing and being a car mechanic. Coincidentally, those are also the two things that I'm apparently really bad at. The blue monster broke down (again) when we went into town to get some produce for the birds. I tried to fix it... at least I got to work on my tan while sitting around waiting for a ride.

Monday we went to Spanish Lookout so I could see where I need to pick up CASA supplies. The ride there was beautiful, but we were driving the whole time so I couldn't get any pictures. I did get a picture of the hand-cranked ferry that we had to ride in order to cross the river but it hasn't made it onto my computer yet. Spanish Lookout doesn't really look like the parts of Belize that I've seen, it's more similar to a midwestern town. We got some ice cream at Western Dairies (I apparently love ice cream now). I got the craboo flavor, which is another native fruit. Western Dairies is run by the Mennonites and it's the only commercial dairy in Belize. There's a very large Mennonite and Amish population; Belize in general is exceptionally diverse in the range of cultures.

The prices here are surprising. Some things are extremely expensive, while others are really cheap. For instance, I found a large box of American cereal for $29 BZD (divide by two for USD)! Bananas at the market are 10 for $1 BZD and bed sheets / linens are quite pricey. I had to buy some triple antibiotic ointment because this job has its hazards, a small tube was $8.45 BZD. Movies at the theater are $2 BZD and a bottle of cashew wine is $8.50 BZD. Many Belizeans go shopping in Guatemala because everything is more affordable.

I've started to become a bit homesick this week. The newness of everything is starting to wear off so I have time to think about other things. I do have a phone and an address if you want to show me some love :) I'm going to purchase a bicycle soon which I think should help. I opted not to go for the scooter because it's more than I should spend plus I'd have to pay insurance every month. Technically I'm supposed to get a license too, but that's easy to get around with a simple "the paperwork is still being processed". Good news: hulu.com actually works here! I'll be able to get my American TV fix now.

Tomorrow we head out early to Belmopan to get my visa and to visit Belize Bird Rescue. Hopefully getting my visa will go smoothly but I'm fully prepared (mentally) for something to go wrong, as it generally does. No other plans for this week so far but I'm sure I'll have something exciting to report this time next week.