Well, another week passed, time seems to be passing fast! Last Friday Rafa managed to slide the car down the bank in the wet slippery mud while trying to turn around. We had fun trying to get it back up, and found it wouldn't go into 4 wheel drive or lock the wheels together so impossible task. In the end the car had to go forwards, moving various obstacles and ruining the neighbour's grass! But at least we got it out safely.
Saturday I started on translating a paper written by staff at the centre into Spanish - quite a task given my Spanish is far from fluent! But google translate came to my rescue and made it feasible and enjoyable, plus learning more about the blue throated macaw's problems in the wild. It took me several days to do, in fact still not completed the tables of data yet.
The left over bananas needed using so I cooked a banana cake, which went down well with everyone too. I do a fair bit of the cooking, often using fruit to make ice cream or fruit fool - yum! Also had time to enjoy the hammock, definitely a good investment!
Saturday night the locals were celebrating the fiesta, which lasts several days in Trinidad. The music went on for most of the night, stopping at about 4 am but restarting about 20 minutes later. Then the morning bird chorus took over so not much sleep. Have seen several new birds over the week end including red headed cardinals, and red and yellow headed wood peckers, plus a third one with green speckles. The red one wakes us us most mornings tapping on a nearby tree! It's been raining on and off most days recently, heavy rain Sunday afternoon sent us all indoors, but the stallion roaming near our cabin sheltered right up against the cabin to keep out of the wind and wet, poor thing.
Monday we were nest checking again, and I helped take my first blood sample from one chick, for genetic checks later. An interesting experience! Feathers are also important to collect from nests for genetic checks of parentage from year to year. On the way back, Rafa stopped for a coke, and I was offered a local fruit drink made from a fruit similar to peach (durazno?) Which was delicious and far preferable to coke! Curried vegetables for dinner with rice, very tasty. Rained heavily from 8pm.
Tues neither Nic's nor my alarms went off so we both were late up, but not by much as the birds still woke us. It was still raining and continued till about 2pm! So translating in the morning then in the afternoon a joint effort cleaning up around and under the two bird aviaries, removing all the dropped motacu nuts they feed on, straightening up the anti- predator barriers (mainly against snakes, so far I haven't seen any), and replacing the rain screens made of palm leaf thatch. All looks much neater now and the birds should keep drier too.
Wednesday we finally met the centre manager Jose (should be an accent on the e...) who had been on holiday in Spain. He's very enthusiastic and can inspire you with his ideas, so I think will be good to work with which is lucky. He has already given us projects to work on in any moments we have no alotted tasks, so our time will be better used from now on. And our roles are now clearer, with explanation of all the projects the centre is engaged with and we will be working on, exciting! He's taking me on a 3 day field trip, camping this Saturday, on horseback,which should be really interesting, and good fun if not too wet!
Today I had my day off, so went to Trinidad to stock up on wine and have a restaurant meal, a treat of fish in an almond cream sauce - delicious! I'm getting to know the taxi drivers on the Sachajere road quite well now, and get asked lots of questions about the work with the macaws, good publicity for them! Nice swim on my return before the rain started again, time for a glass of wine...
No comments:
Post a Comment