I've found that I'm really bad at (the list keeps growing) collecting browse for the birds; I blame inexperience with the native plants and lack of knowledge as to the whereabouts of said plants. It takes me f o r e v e r to do it and I can never find enough. Thankfully, Ricky, who once was a chiclero and spent months in the bush, collects the browse for the parrots. On Tuesday, he brought back branches with tiny dark purple berries on it. There's only a Mayan name for it, of which I cannot remember because he only verbalized it and I didn't write it down (apparently I'm an extremely visual person and can usually only remember something if I read it). Anyway, as I mentioned last week, Tuesday is cage scrub day so the cages were all nice and clean pre-browse with berries. Well, when I went to give everybody their PM diets on Tuesday... I had an exciting mess waiting for me. The two Pionus parrots are naughty and always perch on the door to their aviary in an attempt to escape. In a way, this is helpful since I can get a close look of their underneath bits and their feet. Yesterday, their feet were purple. All of the parrots' feet were purple. And their beaks. And their feathers. And the entire floor and bits of the walls. Really, I couldn't help but laugh. At least the aviaries aren't a dull cement gray anymore?
Last Saturday I attended the Agricultural Show. I passed out a ton
of flyers and coloring sheets, as well as got the word out about CASA. I shared a table with the Forest Department and set out some of my flyers and coloring sheets - the kids loved coloring! However, everybody expected a prize for finishing. I guess coloring a pretty picture isn't prize enough. Next time I'll bring candies or something along so as to not disappoint. It was a bit of an eye-opening experience. I didn't attend Sunday since I'm generally the only one around here on Sunday; there were supposed to be more people there since the rodeo was on Sunday. Thankfully the Humane Society got involved and nixed the cock-fighting. I had intended on posting a picture of kids coloring the CASA coloring sheet, but I accidently selected the wrong photograph. Because this internet is awesome, blogger only lets me upload one photo per post. Instead of seeing the kids coloring, you get to enjoy a beautiful sunrise from last Friday. At least it helps getting up so very early even more worth it!
And I got to enjoy this sunrise before going to help out with more field work. I won't share any of the details, but I'll just say that it was a reminder as to how brutal nature can be sometimes. No field work thus far this week. Perhaps next week.
Next week, I may be doing a presentation at a school here in San Ignacio. Thanks to the Forest Department for including CASA, I may get to do some more educating. I am not a huge fan of public speaking, but I always force myself to get over that aspect somehow.
On another note - I'm sure you've all heard about the Gulf oil spill debacle. If you live in South Carolina, Rosewood Market in Columbia is collecting donations for Save our Seabirds in Florida, who is gearing up to help out the avian victims. If you want to help, the International Bird Rescue Research Center has a team down there and could use the donations. MSNBC also has a list of organizations that could use your help. You can contact your local wildlife rehabilitation center for suggestions as well. If you've been reading anything about it, it's easy to realize that this is going to have a huge effect on the environment and all animal populations - including ourselves. Just a few dollars or donated items could help save a life!
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